Steve - 4.3

Well I had no plan to run tonight, so I decided to have a few adult beverages and take it easy. After consuming a dinner consisting of chocolate chip cookie dough, pasta, chips, and a Japanese sweet potato, I was feeling pretty good. It was approaching 11 o'clock, so I was faced with a decision. Run tonight or get up at 6 in the morning and run. To be Luke's weekly total for the first time in my life and get over 30 miles in the week, I had to do choose one. It turned out to be no decision at all. I threw on my running clothes, rolled on the foam roller for a few minutes and headed out the door. If you'll remember, I like to run as much as possible on grass these days to reduce the chance of overuse injuries. However, the park near my house has been closed for renovations for 6 months. Not only is it fenced off now, the field has been totally demolished with a bulldozer. I can't even sneak in to run on the grass anymore. Well, I had another idea. There is a golf course adjacent to the park. I don't usually run this late at night when no one is out there, so I never consider sneaking in. But tonight I decided I'd give it a shot. The other day I had spotted a perfect spot to jump the fence. So I ventured down to the spot and entered into the forbidden paradise of soft grass. Some sprinklers were running in a few areas, but for the most part it was a wide open oasis of soft running surface. I preceded to run all over to my heart's content. The grass was perfectly manicured, as one would expect. I ran in the fairways. I ran on the greens. I ran everywhere one can even dream of. It was everything I imagined and more. Then something happened. I glanced behind me and saw two lights a few hundred meters behind me. Uh oh. Well maybe they were there the whole time I thought. I quickened my a pace a bit. Since it was so dark, I didn't have very good depth perception. I couldn't tell if the lights were approaching me. They might just have been some stationary lights. Well I sped up a little more to to be safe. I was probably 90 seconds away from the fence. After about 10-15 seconds of running and looking behind my shoulder, I realized in fact it was a little car and it was closing in on me. As the car got with 30 meters of me, I heard a whistle and some yelling. I decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea to run away because it's not like I was stealing anything. I was just tres-running. A guy jumped out and said to me "What are you doing?" Not too angrily, but pretty aggressively. "I'm just running. They tore up the park where I used to run. I just wanted to run on the grass," I said. He seemed to be relieved. I don't exactly fit the image of a criminal. I'm wearing a t-shirt and short shorts. I even pressed pause on my Nike Plus wristband right after he pulled up next to me. So my story is believable, because it's actually the truth. "Ok, well just stay away from the lights," he says. "They have cameras there. Some people broke into the shed a few weeks ago, so that's what I thought when I saw you. But you can run here if you want. Just avoid the lights." I thanked him, and then renewed my orgiastic jaunt through the silky soft grass for about 10 more minutes. My stomach was starting to not like the fact that I had drank a bunch of beer and eaten a bunch of crap not too long a go. I returned home and called it a night. I'm thinking of making this a weekly tradition, assuming my groundskeeper friend continues his generosity.

For the run itself, it was an easy effort, about 10 min/mile pace on average. Pace wasn't really important though as I wanted to just get in some easy miles after my speed workout on Wednesday.