Survival of the fittest

Last run before PDR. Didn't sleep well last night... had a VERY disturbing dream where there was a mouse infestation in my apartment. There were hundreds of them... everywhere... of all sizes and colors. It was horrible. In real life, I have seen a mouse or two in the last month. Supposedly my landlord addressed the issue. I have not seen one (or evidence of any) in several weeks, but obviously I'm haunted by the ghost of vermin past. This has nothing to do with my run, so I'll stop writing about it.

I decided to do the initial Tinicum loop. I wanted to try to run at the pace I'll try to keep at PDR. Obviously there are no mile markers on the trail in Tinicum. I know where 1 mile is from my apartment into Tinicum, but the rest of the way... I'm kind of just estimating. So I was trying to rely on my body to tell me how fast or slow I was going. This is something I have to learn to do better. I often don't feel like I have a good sense of my pace. The first mile went down in just shy of nine minutes, which is what I was looking for. I wanted my first mile to be a little slower. One of my big concerns for Sunday is that I will go out too fast. That has not been much of a problem for me in the past with other races, but I'm really hoping to do well for myself in PDR this year - to exorcise the demons of last year (and the year before - which was my first ever half marathon).

Not knowing the mileage exactly at Tinicum, I can't say what my other splits were, but overall, my pace was right around where I want it to be for PDR. I'll be optimistic and say that it felt doable for 13.1 miles. I guess we shall see what happens on Sunday.

As I was running the 'interesting' part of the initial loop, I noticed one bright red leaf in the trail - an early bloomer it seems, but I took it as a welcome sign of autumn's impending arrival. I had a breakfast of cobwebs as I ran through that part of the loop. No wildlife to speak of. As I made my way down the boring part, I noted the absence of bunnies. Strange, I thought. Just a few weeks ago, the place was teeming with them. Where have they gone? I did not spy a single bunny. Just as I started to feel a little disappointed at the paucity of wildlife, a fawn darted onto the trail and scampered ahead about a hundred yards before stopping and looking back at me. Eventually, I caught up and, of course, the fawn took off again... for another hundred yards. We did this dance several times and, much to my delight, the fawn allowed me to get as close as about fifteen or twenty feet on a few occasions before bounding ahead again. Really, this went on for over a quarter mile. I started to feel badly for the stupid thing. Eventually, I chased her over the first bridge. She then rounded the bend, I followed and chased her some more before she turned right down the first trail that leads to the parking lot (whereas, I continued on straight). I have no idea how to judge the age of a fawn, nor do I know anything about at what age they are independent, but I worried that I had separated her from her family. I'm sure she will find her way.




4.57 in 40:33