Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Run Forty-Three: Road! And birds!

The distance looks pretty ugly - but it was
a pretty decent run. 
Ah, running on the road -- physically more challenging, which is daunting and cool at the same time, mentally very fun but sometimes filled with distractions. The run was going okay -- I was probably trying to run too fast too soon and got winded. According to RunKeeper I was running at a 14:04 minute mile pace at my fastest, but not for very long. I'm not up for doing the math at the moment to turn that into an mph speed, but I know it's faster than 4 miles an hour but not as fast as 5 mph. 

Anyway, I was doing fine -- I had to walk to recover my breath (and I'm coughing now, darn it) but had started running again and was doing pretty okay for my first run outside in a week. I wasn't going to set any personal records, but I was okay. 

Black-Crowned Night Heron -- terrible picture of a beautiful bird.
Then with about 10 minutes of running time left, I saw something that pulled me up short and I did something unwise: I stopped moving. And when I started moving I was moving very slowly. It was all the fault of this guy -- a Black-Crowned Night Heron. The picture is absolutely atrocious (I took it on my phone) but they're beautiful birds and not exactly common around here. And I love seeing cool birds at our relentlessly suburban lake. 

I stopped to look at it, then walked around a guard rail and kind of moved very slowly and quietly to get to where I could get even a crappy picture of the bird without disturbing it. (I'm firmly of the opinion that if I've made a wild animal bolt or flush or flee, then I've done something wrong. And probably something mean, or at least thoughtless.) So I watched it for a bit, and took a few crappy pictures, then thanked it for its time and went on my way. Total delay maybe two minutes.

Having stopped moving, though, I couldn't get my running gear back. 

It was worth it, though. If I ever don't stop to appreciate something like that, I'll have to wonder what I've done with myself. 

Next run is scheduled for Saturday. If the weather forecasters are right, I'll be on the road again. Goal for the run: Try to get back up to my best road distance. If I wind out on the treadmill, my goal is to do better than the last couple of times. 

No comments:

Post a Comment