watchout for that critter...

Thursday evening:

After feeling guilty for missing a critical speedwork session the night before I decided to run a different type of run tonight based on a one hour time frame at whatever pacing felt good to me to relieve some of this running stress while tapering for the Chicago Marathon. I wasn’t able to get out the door until after 7:30pm which means I ran in total darkness last night within our neighborhood region. I’m forced to run a lot of my distance on the sidewalks during the night due to the motorists in our area…safety reasons.

Also I saw a lot of rabbits as usual in our neighborhood but I always need to keep my eyes open for the random skunk so wouldn’t you now it at about mile 6 walking across the street and right in front of me on the sidewalk was a larger size skunk staring me right in my face as I stopped very abruptly about 30 feet from the creature whom has their tail raised and ready to go…luckily I was saved by my quick reaction to turn around and basically choose a different running direction…that was too close…whew!!!

So I ran for one hour and 49 seconds as I covered 7.2 miles in that time for an average mile pace of 8:26 with an average HR of 126bpm. My max HR was some where within the last three miles at 138bpm as my running legs started to feel better towards the end of the endurance run…

b