31 July Medium Run – 4.5 Miles

Having rested one day and only playing tennis yesterday, I was quite psyched for this run. I woke up at about 6.30, said goodbye to the doughster, and was out of the apartment quite quickly. I started out running listening to Billy Bragg and Wilco’s “Mermaid Avenue”, and found myself really enchanted by the song “California Stars”. The album, of course, is Bragg’s re-working of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics that Guthrie never got to put to music and for the first leg of the run I was thinking a lot about Guthrie and his impact on the entire notion of music as political action, and what he’d think about the mess we’re in today.

Anyway, once I started down Cavanagh Road, my thoughts turned to a rather more practical problem. I tried to work out how Edna’s flight could leave later today (Thurs 6pm) and only arrive on Saturday at 3pm. I kept rolling the dates and days of the week around in my head but couldn’t get around it. I will admit that it was quite silly of me not to realize immediately that she probably would be coming in tomorrow – Friday – instead of Saturday, but this occupied a lot of my thinking.

I will say that I managed to “think” of the route in about four parts and this mental map helped. So going around Dover’s Crossing is part one, running down Cavanagh Road to Hawk Island Park is two, running around the lake in Hawk Island is three, and running back up Cavanagh Road is four. It also helps because the stages aren’t exactly uniform in distance and they’re not like I’m just running circles.

The park run was pleasant. I passed quite a few joggers / runners. There was the speedy Japanese guy who was exiting as I entered, the black guy with the Army T-shirt, the plodder (like me) in a bright green T-shirt, and a a girl who was the friendliest of the lot. As for the walkers, I met the same Indian couple who were the only people there when I ran on Saturday, and the couple that I’d met during the 8 mile run. I guess it’s nice to see familiar faces and say hi when you’re running.

Running back was quite easy as well, through I did slow down once I exited the park. As I turned back into Dunckel and got ready to go into Beau Jardin I saw the girl who always runs with MSU Soccer t-shirts. Maybe she’s part of the team. She was striding quite fast and I managed to use her pace to register a strong finish.