Administrative Holiday (i.e. No Running Today)

I was all hyped about getting back out on the road this morning when I went to bed last night. I had everything laid out and ready for when I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30. I got to bed about 10:30, to give myself a good 7 hours of sleep for once. Everything was in place for my 6 miler this morning out to Ft. McHenry and back. I even woke up without about 15 minutes before the alarm, a sign that my body is slowly adjusting.

That’s when I hit a roadblock. Not a get out of bed roadblock or a it’s too cold roadblock. No, this was an actual logistical obstacle to my running that didn’t occur to me until 5:30 this morning, amazingly enough. Let me explain.

So the route would take me out to the fort and back. Ft. McHenry is a national historical monument, which means it’s administered by the National Park Service. That means the park has hours when it’s open and closed. I didn’t even think about this until this morning when I remembere dseeing a sign at the gates last Sunday that said the park is open only from dawn until dusk. No big deal when you’re running at 9 AM, but at 5:30, it’s still dark outside and dawn isn’t until about 7:15! So, a large portion of my run was closed off!

In theory, I could have just gone out to the gates and come back and made up the difference somewhere along the way, but my mind doesn’t like working that way, especially in Baltimore at 6 AM while running. I like to have my route planned out so I can focus on running and training. So, I was mildly displeased at this discovery and decided to spend some time today mapping out some new courses ranging from 6 miles to 10 miles, taking into account when I will be running them so to avoid future mishaps like this. As a result, I will move my 6-miler from today to tomorrow and my 4 miler from tomorrow to Friday, with Saturday being an off day.

Yesterday I didn’t run in the morning because it was below 20 out when I got up. So I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill for the 4 miles. I forgot how inferior a treadmill is to the road. I can’t stride properly because I’m not used to the motion of the treadmill and the whole run I was out of sync and in pain. Sucked. But I got the miles in and got out of there as quickly as possible. Luckily no aftershocks from the ordeal today. From now on, I will push myself to run outside to avoid the hot, sweaty, annoying gym.