Notes from the Road

I'm in Kansas City getting ready for my brother's wedding tomorrow.  I just have a few thoughts and notes from the Road.


1. Running away from home is tough -  It's hard to stay on a training program when you're traveling.  Challenges are many: finding a good place to run, finding the time to run, remembering all of your running gear, etc.   I unfortunately made it all the way out to Kansas City and had forgotten my trusty Garmin GPS runner.  Since I don't have a smart phone to help me know how far I've gone or a regular watch, this made doing a speed workout a bit challenging.  Fortunately, I was able to borrow my dad's digital watch for one day and my brother's garmin the next.  

2. Missouri is much more humid than Denver - I forget what it's like to step out of the house and immediately start sweating.   This definitely impacts runs and it's why I think it is much easier to run in the middle of a hot summer day in Denver than in a city like Kansas City or Houston.  

3. Missouri is a lot lower in elevation than Denver - It's obvious, but elevation makes a pretty big difference.   I ran in Blue Springs this morning, elevation 974 feet which has substantially more oxygen than Denver, elevation 5280 feet.

4. Results - I ran 5 miles yesterday at a pretty good pace (based on my dad's stopwatch and google pedometer).   I ran 11 miles today on the little blue trace trail, which is a great trail to run on in Independence and I even saw a mama and baby deer along the trail.  I'm now 17 miles ahead of Ryan on my year long bet.  I actually felt pretty good during the runs, despite my sleep deprivation.  It may have something to do with the extra oxygen in the air.

5. You never know who you'll run into on your runs away from home - At mile 9, I ran across Ken McLaughlin and Danny Belrose who were on their walk the other way.  If you've never seen Ken's numerous posts on facebook, I suggest you check them out.  No guarantee that you'll be smarter afterwards, but you will probably be entertained.