8-2-07 long and late

Reschedule, re-map, re-think, re-plan, re-reason, re-trace, then do whatever the devil feels right at the time.

Okay, obviously a running 'schedule' is just a great philosophy for me at this moment. We've (Steph and I) obviously gotten ourselves used to running later in the evening to avoid the heat, but this makes for some late runs. Late runs are fine, but the tend to make for early mornings, and when you couple a late run with a planned early morning, well, the morning just gets earlier - especially for those of us who aren't morning people.

The last part of my week was supposed to look like this - Th-4 miles, Fr-6 miles, Sa-8 miles. Life gets in the way. Steph and I have decided to run early Friday morning (before work) so we'll have the evening free with family. Since I'll have to run before work on Friday morning, I decided to juggle the schedule : just swap Th and Fr to make more time Friday morning. Then I got out there tonight looking down the barrel of a 6 mile run, which didn't happen the way I'd planned. Steph and I took separate vehicles tonight. We'd planned to run the first 1.5 miles together, then we'd split up - she could run back to finish her 3, and I'd run on to the 6 mile turnaround. Well, Steph ran a little farther with me so she could make a pit-stop at the visitor center. I turned on my mp3 player and ran on. When I got to the 3 mile turnaround, I decided to go on to the WP park entrance again (I might as well just define that as my turnaround). On the way back, I was feeling pretty spry, so I made a detour down to the boat ramp and into the adjoining picnic area - figuring that this would add more distance and maybe get me over 7 miles instead of the intended 6 miles (remember: plan, then ignore it). Once I got the apex of the loop, I could see out onto the river, and I could see the dam lit up (it was about dusk). It looked like it was 1000 miles away over the water - and I couldn't run a straight line back to it. But it was still pretty - the wind was blowing pretty good across the water, and I was glad to be out running.

By the time I got back to the dam, it was full dark, and the roadway was lit by foot-lights on the dam. After I crossed the dam (about 1 mile left), I saw the park sheriff closing the 'cow gate' at the other end (between me and the jeep). I can easily duck through the cow gate, but I didn't want to have the 'you shouldn't be here' conversation with the sheriff. I wasn't doing anything wrong, I just didn't want the hassle. The posted usage hours at the park are inconsistent, at best. One end of the park says it closes at sundown, one sign says it closes at 8pm, and one sign says it closes at 9pm. I've caught the gate closed as early as 7pm, and as late as 10pm (like tonight). One time I even stopped the sheriff while he was locking up and asked him - he basically said that the park closes whenever he can get around to closing all of the gates. Usually I don't' worry about it. As his car sat there while he locked the gate, he had his blue lights on, and the spotlights on his light bar were lit, and his headlamps on bright - which means I couldn't see ANYTHING, but 5 bright lights pointed at me. It washed out the whole road - so i couldn't see anything in front of me. He finished up, and drove on past me without incident, and I gave him a friendly wave as he passed.

Late night runs are interesting.