run #58 - sick day long run

Despite being on my death bed, I decided to head out for a long run this afternoon. Been getting some quality miles in, but I have a marathon looming in two weeks and I haven't done a 20 miler in quite a while. Actually thought of doing 26.2 miles today, but decided to wait so Salida can have the honor of being the first marathon of the season.

Lots of notable happenings on today's run:

-For those that don't believe me and think I just took a long nap and made this up, I saw Catwoman out running. Just to point out the type of guy I am, I actually stopped to say hello to her, despite the fact that she only has a Forerunner 101, the mark of a lower class, less fortunate human being. Yup, sometimes I like to slum it with the hobos. Of course, I made sure she knew I had the Forerunner 201, and I slapped her if she looked directly into my eyes.

-The run along Fountain Creek after America the Beautiful park is awesome. You have a nice creek flowing on one side of you, and killer views of the mountains on the other side. But as I leave the trail to head back north to my house, I cut up on a sidewalk with the Colorado Springs impound lot on one side, the El Paso County jail on the other side, and a huge junk metal recycling shop in front of me. Quite a drastic change of scenery.

-The run down Las Vegas St was awful. After the jail/impound lot, there are a bunch of industrial sites, including the city wastewater plant. Plus, the wind was horrible here. Miles 15 to 18 were so shitty that if someone would have offered me a ride home here I probably would have taken it.

-Shortly after finally getting off Las Vegas St, onto south Nevada, there's a train underpass. It's going up a hill, and it curves, so even if I had been paying attention I really couldn't see much coming the other way. So my brain suddenly registers that I'm about to be run over by a kid on a BMX bike, but I didn't have enough time to do anything. The kid rams into me. But I don't even move. Despite a near direct hit (his handlebar hit high up on my left thigh) the kid, who is overweight and probably weighs about what I do, and the bike bounce off me and skid along a fence and finally come to rest about ten feet past me. This amazes me, as I know I have just defied the laws of physics and should have been horribly injured. So I run back to check on this kid, who is a cartoon-ish pile of limbs and bike parts, he's pretty shaken up but not hurt seriously. He looked about 13 years old, and has a great future as a hasher as throughout it all he didn't lose the cigarette from his mouth. Thank god for the fence, or the kid woulda been thrown about eight feet down into the street and probably run over by a car.

Anyways, the stats:

Start time: 12:30PM
Distance: 22.0 miles
Time: 3:24:47
Pace: 9:18 per mile
Weather: weather.com reports 30F with a "feels like" temp of 16F, but it seemed a lot warmer.