Running in Carlsbad

The drive from Phoenix to Carlsbad, CA on Saturday was a long one. We were driving our new car, which had less than 200 miles on it. I wanted to make sure we broke it in properly, so we never got about 80 MPH the whole drive. I discovered there is a place in the world HOTTER than Phoenix. It's called Yuma. We stopped there for lunch, and the heat was oppressive. If I'm never there again, it will be too soon. The long drive definitely stiffened up my legs. When I woke up, my calves were really tight. I thought about blowing off my run, but the thought of running in sub-90 degree weather cured me of that thought but quick! It was only in the high 60's when I woke up this morning, but the 80% humidity kept it from being ideal. You can see the ocean from the big front window of our vacation house, and I could see that the fog that covers the sky every morning had already started to burn off. I laced up my shoes and set out. Rather than run on the beach, I decided to run along the Coast Highway, a small road that connects Oceanside and Carlsbad to points north and south. There are tons of runners, walkers, cyclists (bi-, tri- and even uni-), dog walkers, jugglers (it's true!) and other people out on the sidewalk and in the bike lane seemingly 24x7. This morning was no exception. I flipped a mental coin and decided to run south. After a short distance, I was confronted by a fairly steep, fairly long hill. (I'm a little annoyed that the elevation chart doesn't reflect the steepness of this hill!) Despite the soreness in my legs, I kept up a pretty good pace for the whole uphill section of the run. When I reached the top, I stopped for a couple seconds to stretch my legs. The route down was obviously faster. I tried to restrain myself, and kept it to about an 8:30 pace. As the hill flattened out, I noticed a couple running up ahead. I picked up my pace to see if I could catch them. I hadn't noticed the slight decline on the way out, but I sure noticed the incline on the way back! Still, I pushed harder and harder trying to close the gap. Finally, as I reached the finish point I caught up to them. I felt like jumping up and down and shouting, "In yer face, suckas!" But I walked a bit, stretched my legs and admired the ocean instead. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 0 ft Location: Carlsbad, CA Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 08/04/08 Up/Downhill: [+0/-0] Time: 07:16 AM Difficulty: 0 / 5.0 Weather: Fair with Haze 69 F temp; 81% humidity 69 F heat index; winds NA Performance Distance: 3.14 miles Time: 0:27:18 Speed: 6.9 mph Pace: 8' 42 /mi Calories: 505 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 31 -0' 11 7.0 +0.1 -- ft 2 10' 06 +1' 24 5.9 -1.0 -- ft 3 8' 42 +0' 00 6.9 -0.0 -- ft end 7' 55 -0' 47 7.6 +0.7 -- ft Versus average of 8' 42 min/mile

Posted from runtracker.runnersworld.com