Beautiful Sunday morning run...

This blog has quickly begun focusing on Writing and Running. Since those two topics seem to take up the majority of my time - and since I often do both at the same time - it makes sense. This morning, I woke up with optimistic plans of a morning run around the lake followed by a trip out to the beach. Sadly, as has happened in recent weeks, I opted out of the beach. I justified it with the partial cloud cover and fact that I finished my run sprawled out on the grass near the lake and got a sufficiently large dose of Vitamin D.

But, the truth of the matter is that I simply didn't want to drive 2 hours round-trip to the beach... that isn't that pretty when compared to my hometown, Destin beaches anyway.

So, I hit the path around Lake Baldwin and pushed through the early morning humidity.

• The closed loop around the lake is great for me. It's 2.5 miles, so I can do maintenance runs of 3 laps or longer runs of 4-5 loops pretty easily
• The breeze coming in off the lake breaks up the humidity and drops the temperature a couple degrees
• The lake itself acts as a weather break, often forcing weather systems to split as they near and allowing for more runs without rain
• The talent level of the Baldwin Park runners makes for some nice sight-seeing
• The pleasant atmosphere and safe pathway allows my mind to wander and work up some new thoughts on the sequel to my first book, Number 181 (Get it here) and some new ideas that keep popping into my head. Sadly, some are so complex I'm not even sure how to put them on paper. And, I have so many random thoughts while running that to write them all would require 10 years of my life and result in 25 books books of drastically different genres.

Lake Baldwin - Where ducks go to duel

I've started using the MapMyRun app on my phone since it has more functionality than my iPod Nano. Also, since my Nike+ sensor crapped out, the Nano has been used more due to familiarity than anything else. Since my phone can pay music, the Nano has quickly become useless. The 7.5 miles went by a little slow today, or so I thought. It must have been the heat and/or humidity that made me feel sluggish, because I certainly wasn't. I ended up with 7 1/2 miles in 1hr5, a nice 8:40 pace when you consider I stopped for some water and to drop off my shirt after the first loop. I lost a minute or so at the car since I didn't stop the recording, but it was nice to get free of the shirt for the rest of the run.

The trick now is figuring out how to best plan for the next few weeks. I'll be doing my (Twit on a Road Twip 2012) thing next weekend and hitting some races around the country. But, with GORUCK DC thrown in there on July 4th, determining how and when to push myself is going to be difficult. If I run a half marathon race next Saturday (spoiler?), I don't want to push myself so hard that it makes training for the next couple weeks difficult.

Of course, I know that when the time comes, I'll end up pushing just as much as the runners next to me. Who am I kidding?
_