Return to Castlewood: Runner UP!

RUN 3.1 miles out of 5.5; 31 minutes out of 80 minutes, 15 mins of which were for two stair climbs!

Another late start, had a lot of indecision about where to run. I wanted relatively flat, no rocks as I didn't have trail shoes, and ease of out n back or loop. Lost Valley was 10 mile loop of rocks. Babler too many rocks. Creve Coeur too many people and too short of loops. Castlewood crossed my mind only after I'd stopped by lab and got most of the way out to where I thought I was going - Lewis and Clark.

So it wasn't until 11am that I started running. This was our first weekend of real heat, upper 80's. So combine that with biking yesterday and I was worn out. JH suggested I set a running HR alarm for 140-ish, and slow down the pace when I hit that. (Forgot to mention this in Friday's summary).  But I kept hitting the 142 upper limit and it was driving me nuts. Didn't last more than a few intervals. Such a distraction, couldn't do it. I started trying to game the system, move my arms less or breath different to slow my HR. Yeah, that doesn't work.

So bippity-bop along the river (new word: riparian= riverbank. Used in a sentence: Riparian Restoration in progress, thanks for not crossing this fence), around the Mother's Day hikers and through the sand. And around the horse shit. I don't know if I've ever been so happy to be jumping over piles of horse shit before, it means I'm on a trail!

And the sweetest words were spoken around mile 2, from another hiker: RUNNER UP. Oh my gawd, my poor HR spiked at that too.

As always at Cwood I come up to the stairs unexpectedly. I forget how the park seems to form a big C shape. Suddenly there's the trail tunnel! The stairs were so nice, I did them twice :)  Figured since I rode the elevator at work earlier, I'd earned some time on the stairs now.

Then bippity-bop back along the river. More fatigued now, still happy but looking for the end of the 3 min intervals. Near the end, after a few eye rolls at two very vocal swimmers in the middle of the Meremac (who had walked past a "no swimming" sign to get to there) who became all the more vocal as a boat came around the corner to them, then even more vocal and it sounded like cries for help. I had just listened to the Stuff You Should Know podcast about drowning, so I knew they weren't drowning. Ok, I'm kidding. But seriously, they were getting enough air to yell a lot, the boat stopped, there were many peoples about, so I kept going.

Back to the hot truck to knock sand out of my toes, the Adrenaline road shoes held up OK for this terrain, but I really need new shoes. Had a stop to get an OfferUp purchase for mom, after which a motorcyclist told me that none of my brake lights were coming on! Later that night, after happily watering and tending my patio garden, I tested and sure enough -- no lights. Nuts. That's been going on for a few weeks I'm guessing. Dad suggested the brake light switch, and it turns out that if that goes so does cruise control, and I noticed that out of service on a previous trip home!!!

No pains after this, no problems. And I'm proud to say -- no headphones or podcast here either! Am I safe yet to get out of my head?  ETA no nutrition in run there, just before and a few hours after. Felt great.

NUMERICS 6 hours 22 mins, which only includes SBR, no BC or W.
SWIM once for 2050y and 60 mins
BIKE 66 miles
RUN 8.22 miles (gotta get down to the hundreths when the number so small!)
BIKE COMMUTE 34.2 miles
WALK 19.3