Upping the Mileage

It is so weird how your perspective changes once you've been running less mileage. I had my "big" 4 mile run this weekend and I was a little nervous about it. Nervous is not the right word, but maybe just anxious about keeping a pace I was happy with for the full 4 miles.

I also decided to shake it up a little by changing my route, and doing part of the middle loop in Central Park. I knew this would end up with me walking a fair amount home (because I would end up running about 5+ miles if I ran the whole way) but I was all right with that because it was PERFECT running weather (high 30s and sunny) and I could use the walk as a nice cool down. My new course included Cat Hill (yuck!) and all of the little rolling hills on the west side (ugh). But I tackled them with aplomb!

I also noticed something a little strange...

Riding alongside me were 6 black sedans. This is weird because there is no traffic allowed in the park on Saturday morning. Must be someone important. All of the license plates were either from DC or Maryland. Hmmmm. AND there were helicopters overhead. A girl next to me started chatting with me and we were trying to figure out who it was...Obama? Wasn't he visiting the Dalai Lama though? Not sure. We speculated all the way up to 102nd street, where I pulled ahead of her. I hit my 3 mile mark and realized it was 30 seconds faster than my previous 2 miles. Score! I guess I do better when I am distracted while running.

The last mile seemed kind of long, especially with all of those little hills, but before I knew it my Garmin was beeping away telling me I was at mile 4. Hurrah!

(Btw, I asked Bill about the whole political caravan thing, since I knew he used to drive in them all the time in Cincy. He said it sounded like someone big. His first thought was Obama too, but then with the additional information that they were having the Run for Haiti that morning, he thought a more likely guess was Bill Clinton...especially since he lives kind of sort of near there.)