Friday, December 22, 2006

The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

Ran 6.0 miles @ 8:31/mile pace.
Paved roads, dirt roads/wide trails.
Moderately hilly.
Weather: lower-mid 20s.

Today called for a lighter day, and with a work party this afternoon, an early morning run only seemed fitting. I decided to run a mile down the road to a fire/service road that goes into a large section of woods. Here I wouldn't have to worry about sleepy drivers or neighbors' dogs. Only wildlife.

The path climbs steadily up for a couple of miles until I hit the turnaround point, which is a good size lake in the middle of the woods. My headlamp brightly lit the way, and I was enjoying myself despite not being fully awake.

My pace slowed a bit on the return route when I encountered a large porcupine in the path. He ran straight ahead, trying to flee, as I slowed my pace and followed it a good ten feet back. I wondered why the poor guy didn't just duck into the woods. I felt bad knowing that I was probably scaring the heck out of the prickly little bugger. The path widened and I was able to get to one side, and sensing this, he finally turned and ducked into the woods.

Good run. My next workout will be down in Florida where I'm heading for Christmas. It'll be nice to be able to run shirtless again.

4 comments:

Andrew said...

That sounded like a very nice run.

Olga said...

Yay for woods!

Love2Run said...

Hope you don't scare off the wildlife in Florida. Shorts... Have a nice holiday!

MB said...

I'm jealous, Florida, that's real sweet, watch out for the alligators!