Phlox Run is Tomorrow…

But I’m not running it. I was tempted to… I wanted to redeem myself after last year’s silly dehydration race, but due to cost and timing, I decided against it. I’m writing an exam next Thursday, so I really shouldn’t be heading out of town to run at 25K race.

I’m not writing a blog post *just* to tell you that I’m that I’m not running a race tomorrow (although there’s not a whole lot more to this post), but I thought it was mentionable since I ran through some sections of trail this morning with phlox blooming on both sides. I took the above photo this morning at Bechtel Park.

Today’s run was nothing to write home about (although I am writing a blog post, so I guess it’s something to write to everyone about… hmm…), but it was a good run. I actually rode my bike to the park (just over 5 km) and then headed into the trails. It was my first time there since early fall.

I started out heading into the trails and was thinking that I would just run around in the trails for a while and not do anything too specific, but once I got in there, the familiarity took over and I started to run the race course for ENDURrun stage 3.. mind you, starting mid way through an actual loop. The familiar twists and turns put a smile on my face and even the pesky downhill that I took shoulder first last summer, causing me to hit my knee on something and have knee pain for months.. yes even that hill made me smile… although I noticed that I took it quite cautiously every time I went down it.

After I made my way through the trail section once, I decided I should run one actual full loop of the course, so out of the trails I went, making my way around the park, down into the meadow, and even running around the school yard to the approximate locations I recalled being the actual course (without the flags, it’s a bit less obvious), making my way back to the woods. As I entered the shady wooded area, the all-so-familiar relief of being in the shade after being out in the open came over me and my smile got even bigger.

I only did the full loop once, and finished up just with one more round of the trails before calling it a day. I stood by my bike for a minute after I was done, sweat dripping off of me, and was happy. I then hopped back on my bike and rode home.

I’m looking forward to racing at Bechtel this summer. Yes I am.