Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Engine Goes Toot Toot

Tuesday, June 17:

What an enjoyable run! Five miles on my favorite little dirt road along the railroad tracks in Lake Woebegone. Best of all, on the return leg of the out-and-back I saw the three headlights of an engine approaching. As the train neared, the engineer whistled two short toots. I gave him the thumbs up and waved, and got two more short toots. No road crossing in sight, in fact nothing but woods in sight, he was greeting ME. As it roared past, I could feel the earth shake every time my feet touched the ground. That’s cool. I love trains.

Next best of all - I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday bending over to cut out some shrubs with a chain saw. ( The shrubs have this karmic way of retaliating.) This morning when I got up it was still sore. And this afternoon when I started this run the back hurt a bit, but within twenty paces the pain was gone and it didn’t bother at all for the rest of the five miles. I don’t think I need to worry about it interfering with the marathon. That’s a relief.

Splits: 18:35 (2 mi), 9:04, 8:38, 8:44, total 45:00, pace 9:00. As usual I was shooting for 9:30 and overshot the pace a little. I definitely will need to run with a pace team to avoid going out too fast. Today 78 degrees, no pains, no problems. It’s a masterpiece.



Breakfast
Anti-Oxidant Breakfast: Gluten-free oatmeal with organic flame raisins and dried cranberries, banana (under there somewhere), blueberries, organic strawberries, pineapple, papaya, organic walnuts, nonfat organic milk.
Salad
Salad: Organic romaine, cucumber, kiwi, blue cheese, cashews, organic red wine vinegar.

1 comment:

peter said...

What a nice run to experience a train go by and communicate with KC Jones too. Last time I was in MN was when the RR bridge over the Mississip got burned by a vandal. My sister tells me they never caught him (her) and now have a fence that keeps people off the trestle. Too bad.