Well, I'm back from vacation and I can tell from the total lack of blog comments that my friends were totally worried about my leaving Lexington, KY on Sunday. Sarcasm aside, this was a horrible tragedy that hopefully won't be repeated anytime soon. We were able to see both emergency vehicles and the huge morass of news vans on our way out of town Sunday afternoon. It's just plain sad.
Moving on to more personal news, after a week of barbeque mutton, golfing, spending time with the family and the in-laws and Ale-8-One (which I simply must have shipped to me), it's back to NYC and the daily grind today, just in time to welcome Hurricane Ernesto to the City tomorrow. Oh, and congratulations to Cat and Nathan, whose wedding was the reason for the whole trip!
Running-wise, I finally got to check out Muhlenberg County's brand-spanking new Rails-to-Trails conversion, which is a fantastic resource to the County's health. (For those of you unfamiliar with my home, John Prine immortalized it in an old Bluegrass protest song, "Paradise." Download it and you've pretty much got the picture.) It's somewhat shocking, but everyone that I talked to had been out to bike the length of the new 6 mile trail. I'm so impressed with this health resource (that's totally being used -- I saw dozens of people) as it's the largest such conversion in Kentucky. It's a great effort for the Nation's fifth fattest state. I also took runs in the super-hilly UK arboretum and along the old mine road across from my parent's house, where I scared the pants off a flock of quail and saw a tugboat floating down the Green River. The mine road was a fantastic cross-country run, involving gravel, mudholes, beanfields and animals (sheep, cattle and goats!). Definitely back to nature after all the time in the City.
I think that's a pretty solid summary; and I'll leave out more detail so that this post doesn't turn into a small book. All told, despite the trip I'm still more or less on plan, with only the two exceptions of a failed MP run (hills + 85F + 30s/mile faster than MP for first 2 miles = crash!) and a missed 6 mile general aerobic run (hung-over from wedding), which I have to consider a total success. Here's the last week:
| Aug. 24 | 6.1 miles | 46:22 | 7:36/m |
| Aug. 26 | 14.5 miles Arboretum | MP Run (failed) 1:51:22 | 7:39 avg. |
| Aug. 28 | 9.0 miles Rails-2-Trails | 1:10:00 | 7:47/m |
| Aug. 29 | 7.0 miles Mine Road | 53:00 | 7:34/m |
| Aug. 31 | 8.0 miles | 60:55 5X600m@2:10 | 7:36 avg. |
2 comments:
That's awesome that the town is taking advantage of the new trail. Always nice to see people getting out and being active.
hey, i did think about you briefly when i heard that news but then remembered that you weren't heading to that destination and had a feeling you were ok...nevertheless, that was quite tragic...something that could have definitely been avoided. glad you're ok and that you're back and that you had a great vacay!! :)
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