When I finally dragged myself away from the cat and coffee, it was ten o'clock but the weather was still cool and the sky overcast and looking like rain. Carrollton was my destination, and I loaded my truck, bought gas, and made my way east on US 82. I stopped at Dollar General and parked in the back of their lot. In nothing flat I was shuffling south on Highway 17.
In my last blog post, written yesterday, I told how my spirit was ill at ease seeking for an adventure. My usual haunts didn't appeal to me, and I had the intuition that there was a run out there somewhere just beckoning me to come and enjoy. I wanted that one not any sort of ordinary outing. I mused upon this while I sat in my bed and sipped my wife's delicious coffee and snuggling with Jeff the weeny dog.
I thought about driving to Lexington, a distance of sixty miles, and parking on the square there then running Highway 12 back towards Tchula. That road has the most relentless set of hills I have seen in the entire state, with the possible exception of Highway 49 going south out of Yazoo City, and every time Penny and I go that way to Jackson, I think about making that run. I don't like running highways, but I was hill hungry, seeing how I am in training for The Great Noxapater Journey Run. The Lexington trip fell out of favor when I thought about the absence of shoulder on that road and how potentially dangerous that run could be. Yazoo City? Well, I just didn't want to drive that far. When I make that trip, I must drink less coffee and leave home earlier.
Then it hit me-- Highway 17. I have cycled that road and even run small sections of it from the cabin. Leaving Hodge Ski Lodge, it is a good six miles to the highway via a maze of gravel roads. Once, I ran to the pavement and then to Pelucia Creek and back, a round trip of about eighteen miles. I'm not in eighteen-mile shape. So I drove to Carrollton and parked the truck and began my adventure from Dollar General.
One thing I realized very early in the run was how shaded this road is. As a north/south highway with pine trees close to the shoulder on both sides, I came to the realization that I should have run here much of the summer. This year we have had a very hot school break, and finding adequate shade had proven impossible. This jewel was here all along only I didn't realize it.
My aim for the day was to go a minimum of ten miles, maybe twelve. I shuffle comfortably for 5.1 before I decided to take a walk break while I consumed a gel and drank some water from my Nathan. Although the weather was cool, the dew point was 73 and by now I was already soaking wet. Be that as it may, I felt good and was having a nice time.
I walked a half mile before resuming my shuffle down the lonely, shady paved path. Round two of running was a 3.51 mile jaunt that took me out a gravel side road. I had already turned at about 6.6 total miles south and then I threw in some short side shuffles on the way back to up the distance. My second walk was only three tenths of a mile. Actually, I need to walk more. The Great Noxapater Journey Run will include lots of walking, so I need to train that more than I currently am.
When I started back for round three of running, my legs were feeling the fatigue. This time I went 1.53 before I slowed to a walk on a gravel road that paralleled Pelucia Creek which, I found out on this run, is three miles south of the store in Carrollton. Back on the highway, I shuffled and walked the final three miles back to the store for 12.59 miles of running and 1.95 miles of walking giving me a total of 14.54 foot miles.
This was not a real adventure and it was not really that long, but it was a nice start to the kind of training I need to do a lot more of to be successful in my rematch with TGNJR. Right now, I plan to make my attempt in November. It will be cool enough then to be able to cover long distances with not a lot of liquid. It is usually warm enough then that danger from the cold is not an issue.
Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment