Route Sampler

We have returned from Michigan. I gotta tell ya', if you're interested in birds, travel through south central Nebraska in mid-to-late March to see thousands of sandhill cranes migrating through. 'Tis a sight to behold! In addition to observing the sandhill cranes, I also got a first hand look at parts of my route. The typical routine of the eastbound portion of the trip was:

• check the weather forecast (much of our route was dictated by weather in our attempt to avoid hail, floods, and tornadoes)
• run before starting out on the road
• drive a bunch
  
• run while my husband and brother ate lunch
• drive until dark

The lunch time runs were where I got to try out my route - specifically:

• Highway 83 north out of North Platte, Nebraska - a four lane road with no shoulder but the world's most polite drivers. Every single one of them moved over to give me a full lane to run on. Very nice!
• Highway 35 east out of Norfolk, Nebraska - where I ran uphill, into the wind, in a heavy downpour. It's good to know I'll be running in familiar conditions while on the road ;-) This is also where a ~9 month old dog decided to adopt me and I had a mile or so detour through farm fields and country neighborhoods trying to find his home. (I found houses, but none with anyone home. I ended up leaving him attached to an empty dog chain in someone's yard since he was quite insistent about accompanying me.)
• Highway 35 east out of Menominee, Michigan - the border town where we first enter the Upper Peninsula. This time I ran in fog rolling off ice-covered Lake Michigan on a fairly warm day. Very surreal. A very fun way to enter the state.
• In Petoskey, I ran along the bikepath I'll be running as I enter town...always a beautiful route as it borders Little Traverse Bay which was spectacular on this trip with its ice drifts laced with blue water.
  

So the route sampling was quite enjoyable. However, the mileage overall for the trip was rather low; I finished the week of March 19th with 94.5 miles rather than the planned 110 and only ran 41.5 miles the week of March 26 rather than the 50-60 on the original schedule. This left me feeling rather flat so this week is devoted to kicking myself back into gear. I set out yesterday for a 3 hour run but only managed a couple of hours because I fell on a trail and slid rather like a baseball player stealing home...only over rocks and dirt. I landed on my right side with my right arm fully extended and every muscle in my shoulder is rather mad at me and, on top of that, my right knee took a bruising. Other than that, I came off the fall pretty lightly all things considered (i.e., nothing broken), but I bailed on the rest of the run. Today was much better, with a 13 mile meandering run this morning and 40 minutes of errand running this afternoon. Boulder is quite delightful to run through right now with blossoms springing out all over. It's a good time to re-energize and gear up for The Run!