For Whom the Dogs Bark

66F.  Ran in Temple, Texas this afternoon.  The humidity felt low but by the end of the run I was pretty spent, quite a bit of wind and some respectable hills.  Ran 19.07 miles in 2:57:12, average pace 9:18 per mile.  Average heart rate 142, was unable to maintain LHR under these conditions unless I ran so slow I would never finish.  Ran the first lap with my daughter, right at 10K.  She was showing me the route, which included a mile or two against highway traffic.  That was a new experience seeing automobiles coming at me full speed, but I got used to it after a while.  We turned off the highway and at about mile 4 I tripped and fell down on a perfectly flat sidewalk.  I have some ugly knuckle abrasions that are a source of morbid fascination for my granddaughters on this Halloween weekend.  But no permanent damage.  It is my fifth fall, I remember each one.  One of these days I will fall the wrong way and that will be it.

After dropping my daughter off at her house, getting a drink and cleaning myself up I went out for another lap.  I knew I wasn't going to make it out for a third lap so I started looking for detours.  I headed on down the highway instead of turning onto the sidewalk, but that ended after a mile when three large canines of uncertain heritage and poor grooming headed my way.  I figured I was done for but they were across the busy highway and didn't press the issue after I turned around.  Then through a neighborhood which was uneventful.  Then I found a disc golf course which had a couple of miles of trails in it.  By now I was diligently searching for water.  I finally found a park with a drinking fountain and solved that problem.  Turns out the park had three miles of trails in it, very pretty.  Then I slogged it home, was hitting 9:30s about this point.

Following up on last week's half marathon in Huntsville, I got this picture from some friends.  The lady on the left, Shannon, is the daughter of some friends of ours -- we didn't know she is a runner and we found her at the race by accident.  She was running her first race ever and was the fourth woman finisher.  She beat me by 6 minutes.  She is ridiculously humble; some people just don't know how fast they are.  The other two are Wade and Linda.  Also Shannon's daughter.  We had a good time, even though I didn't get a good time.