I love running trails...

Worked 7-hours at MSC

I wasn’t scheduled to work today, but MSC is shorthanded this week and I offered to help out. It was another good day at the PT job. Everyone at Moore thinks highly of me. It's a good feeling to be liked so much, but boy do I have those guys fooled! I learned something very important today. Never underestimate the people around you. The main guy in our warehouse speaks broken English and he is one of the hardest workers at our store. Our job in the warehouse is 90% labor, and there is not a lot of book smarts needed. I was talking to him today and learned that he has a MASTERS degree in accounting. I knew he was smart, but wow… a master’s degree!?!?! That is impressive.

My Thursday night trail running group is coming together nicely. In fact, I had a total of five runners this evening. I’m a social creature and the additional runners has me STOKED!

The route was a little more “off the beaten path”. The first mile ran along the bayou trail, which is easy-peasy. We crossed the creek, but one of the runners slipped on a slimy rock and cut her shin open. I felt so bad for her. We had just hit the one-mile mark and a runner was already bleeding. We cut through the woods without a defined trail, before I realized I turned too late. The end result left us running through a large plot of palmetto palms. Not a big deal, but I don’t think the runners much enjoyed bushwhacking through the large abrasive palms. From there we ran along a power line easement and then across a frisbee golf coarse.

Once we reached River Grove Park we ran on the boardwalks, which now overlook tall grass where water once was. The layout of River Grove park is completely different due to the drought and subsequent low water levels on Lake Houston. From there we cut across a large athletic complex and ran through several soccer fields. The next ¾ mile was on a road, until we snuck back into the woods behind the FFA barn. There’s a loosely marked horse path, which we followed to the bayou trail where we started.

The mileage was shorter than I expected, but all was well. We ran intervals of; run 0.50 mile/walk 1:30 minutes. The group was able to stick together nicely at the 11:40 pace and established intervals.

I’m having wavering thoughts of rekindling the Texas Trail Nerd group. We tried several times, but it never took off like Karen and I envisioned. One issue was the “Ultra” mentality. Very few people will ever run an ultra and most of those people are solo-runners. I want to see what we can do to introduce the average runner to the beauty of running on trails…. I just don’t know if I have the time to devote to a project like this.

Run:

4.31 miles

50:16

11:40 pace

Walk:

0.74 mile

13:30

18:15 pace