Training Log - Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Once again I awoke before my alarm went off. Looking out the window, I really would've rather gone back to bed for another couple of hours. The temps were in the high 20s and the raods were wet. It just didn't look inviting outside. Anyway, I pulled out some long running pants, gloves and a hat as well as a short sleeve underarmor type shirt, a long half zip running shirt and a running jacket. All bundled up I drove over to Richard, Mike, and James' office for an 11 mile run. When I got to their office only James was ready to go. Richard and Mike used work as an excuse not to go;-) James and I took off at 5:30am going our usual route towards Rainbow Mountain. James and Mike had found an interesting looking path on Google Earth and James was set on figuring out exactly what this path was all about. On our outbound leg, James and I headed straight for Rainbow Mountain, heading up and around the mountain loop. We were really booking it today, running all the way up the mountain without any walking or hiking breaks, which is pretty hard to do on those trails. On our way back, we turned left on Explorer Boulevard so we could pursue James' hunt for knowledge;-) When we arrived at the suspected entrance to the "new" trail, we noticed that a large construction site was located right at the suspected trail. As we entered the area, we realized that they were actually building a park at the site and that the "DNA" strand or helix shaped trail was a gravel trail running the length of about half a mile. It was surrounded by an asphalt road that was being built for park visitors and ran around the trail like a racing oval. Amazingly, Google Earth imagery was already showing this artifical trail that was still under construction. As we were running the asphalt loop, James and I started to wonder how long it would be until someone started marking the road for distances to do speedwork or intervals. I'm sure it won't be long;-) Considering all the exploring and trail running involved in today's loop, our actual running time was actually pretty impressive compared to our usual times, especially the section heading up the Rainbow Mountain trail loop.