Road Work

Thanks to the people at http://forums.runnersworld.com/ I've decided I need to add some road work to my work outs. I've been almost exclusively running on a treadmill since daylight savings time and the harsh southern California winters that we all know about. The reason I've been doing mostly treadmill work is because I usually run after work 6:00 to 6:30 PM ish and by that time it's usually pretty dark. Here's a picture of my commute home, look how scary and dark it's getting!

So back to road work, the idea is that on a treadmill you are locked into the same running pattern and the muscles that are responsible for dealing with the various perturbations that you encounter while running outdoors aren't getting a proper workout or challenge. Anyways, that sounded good to me, so off to hit the road I went. I returned to the Rose Bowl, site of the Vince Young evisceration of the USC Trojans a few months ago. (Have to throw in a USC barb whenever possible....Go Bruins!). Arrived and started from the Lot K parking lot at 4:30 PM, Ipod mini charged and ready to go. I think I was going at a 5.5 mph pace, but I have no idea. The start of the run is slightly uphill and I could feel myself breathing harder than usual after about 5 minutes. Maybe it was the grade, the unknown pace, or aha! the perturbations! Those forum nerds eer gurus may have been correct.

The Rose Bowl had fewer walkers, runners, bikers than I remember. The massive bicycle amoeba (the 30+ or so bikers that ride together there) was absent. Halfway through the first lap, I was telling myself, maybe I'll just do the one lap (~2.5 miles) and stop, then thought, hmmm that would look terrible on my blog (darn why'd I have to start this blog thing this week). So I complete the 2.5 miles and kept going. I was keeping about the same pace, but forgot my watch so have no idea on the splits. The second lap wasn't as hard as I thought I would be. I passed the same guy and his rollerblading girlfriend going the opposite way for about the 4th time. Thought to myself, should I make eye contact, give some sort of "thumbs up"/"way to go" wave? Make some witty comment like, "Hey we meet again.". Of course, I did none of the above. I think I'm on the lower end of the socialization/communication totem pole. I think my brother-in-law would have had the names of their mothers, fathers, next of kin, eating habits, and social security numbers by this time (he's obviously a little higher on the socialization totem pole).

The rest of the run was uneventful. I completed the second lap for a total of about 5 miles in my estimation. Check the clock in my car and it said 5:27 PM, so I guess it took me about 57 minutes. I'll bring my watch next time and get a more accurate measurement.

Next up is a Monday short (3.5-4 miles) run. I'm changing my long run days to Fridays I think.