Freedom of speech and on the trail

Into the woods

Today's run (Stillwell Woods): 3.5 miles

Those of you who also have running blogs know that the easier you make it for people to comment, the more you'll find people who'll take advantage of that access. Over the years I've changed the criteria for submitting comments. Now I allow anyone to post, because I just don't want to leave anyone out. As a result, I have to clean out a bunch of spam comments every day. But it's a small price to pay for freedom of speech!

This morning I decided that I needed to take my performance focus down a notch, so I headed over to Stillwell for an easy trail run. It was dry, cool and sunny and the trails were in great shape. A mile or so into the run, I realized how strong I felt. Stillwell tends to beat me up badly, and this was evidence that my conditioning has improved.

Besides a couple of mountain bikers and woman walking her dog, the trails were empty. I loved the feeling of running well and having the woods pretty much all to myself. There's usually a point in almost every run when you begin to feel the work. You start thinking about how much longer or farther you have to go. Today was different in the best of ways. Tomorrow it's back to road, the hills and the miles.