Weekend Warrior-ing

Caution: Yard Sale Shoppers Ahead. That would have been an appropriate sign for the neighborhood the Birkdale group runners went through Saturday morning. It was a neighborhood wide yard sale. Although we usually run on the left side of the road and leave the sidewalk to the dog walkers, the amount of cars parked on the curb and pulling in and out necessitated use of the emergency lane as I called it. Randy and I managed just over 5 miles with an average pace of 7:49. It was a great morning with overcast skies and a nice breeze.

The weather was so great all weekend that I tried to be outside as much as possible. Sunday morning I got up early and went to North Mecklenburg Park to run the singletrack there. It is a 3.1 mile loop with lots of twists, ups and downs. I ran it once and then turned around and ran it again in the other direction. Trail running definitely drains my energy faster. My pace started out around 8 minutes per mile, but soon dropped. On the second go around I found a pretty comfortable pace and just enjoyed the environment. Garmin details

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Vasque Mindbender Review
The Vasque Mindbender shoes did well. These are the trail running shoes I picked up at REI a month or so ago. This was only my second run with them, but they feel great. The run I did was on a very twisty single track with quite a few tree roots and minimal rocks. The one creek crossing is narrow enough to jump over, so I haven't gotten them wet yet. The trail is maintained by the local mountain bike association and they added an occasional log obstacle and jump.

The shoes are light and quite stable. I was very pleased with their stickiness on the tight turns. Their light weight made me feel quite nimble going over the roots and other obstacles. Although I've only had them a short time and done very few miles, I am satisfied and look forward to putting more miles on them soon.

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On my way into church later that morning one of the guys told me to be at a park at 3pm for some touch football. I hadn't played football probably since high school, but ran around for about 2 hours with 12 or so other guys from the church. It was a good time. With the forecast for almost 90 degrees, I was worried about being out in the direct sun for that long. But ample sun block, a good steady breeze, and copious amounts of water and gatorade kept me quite comfortable.

Monday afternoon I noticed some new soreness in my legs. I'm not sure if it came from the trail run or football or most likely both. I had already decided that a rest day was in order for Monday. The soreness confirmed that as a good idea.