Not Quite 22

Poor Sam was up a fair amount last night with a cough. If it is more of the same tonight, I'll put a call into the doctor tomorrow morning, just to be safe. She was fine during the day today and yesterday, but the cough seems to crop back up at night. Perhaps it is lying down that does it? Regardless, she was up at 6am ready to go for the day this morning :-) We played for a while, and then after I fed her at 7:30, she went down for a nap. It seems so funny to put her down for such an early nap, but she was clearly tired. With her fast asleep, and Ryan just waking up, I tiptoed out of the house for my scheduled 22-mile run.

It would have been great to run at Pineland, but since Ryan was working today and had nicely agreed to watch Sam while I was gone for a few hours, it was only fair to run from home so that I would be home sooner than later. The sky was overcast, and it was cold and windy - only 41 degrees, and definitely not feeling any more than that! I headed out on the powerlines, then on Foreside Road to the Hillside trails. I then looped back out to the end of the powerlines before heading back toward Mt. Ararat. I was really hoping not to have to come back out on the lines later in the run, as the wind was whipping along them pretty strongly, so I figured I'd get an extra mile or so in along them early on.

I wound my way through the Mt. Ararat trails and looped around Highland Green Road before ducking into the woods onto the Cathance trails. The Cathance trails are great, but they are twisty and turny, and it can be tough to keep a rhythm going while running on them. Luckily, the woods are beautiful, and the wildflowers kept my interest as I ran along. However, as I wandered through the woods, and got to the 2:15 mark, I was definitely starting to flag. I tried to keep up the eating and drinking to combat the energy lag, but I wasn't feeling all that chipper. I think it was a combination of not a lot of sleep, the wind and cold, and just being out there by myself for such a long time. I ended up only running 20 of my planned 22 miles, which was sort of disappointing, but in the end, I did run 20 miles, which I hope will serve me well later this month at Pineland! I was out there for 3:13:54, which was probably a bit too fast, but I was running along pretty comfortably for most of the run. I doubt I'll be able to keep up a 9:30ish pace at Pineland, but it's good to know I can clip along at a good pace even on a 20 miler! Of course, probably 4 of those miles were either paved or packed gravel/dirt roads, which certainly made for faster running, but I think the Cathance trails cancel that out :-)

Anyway, I'm pretty tired right now!

Flora and fauna notes: Scared up 2 deer and several ducks along the Cathance. Saw a handful of ladyslippers, and enjoyed running past the patches of vibrant pink trailing arbutus, bluets, starflowers, goldthread and rue anemone in the woods. The hobblebush was blooming along the river, and the bunchberries were everywhere!