Lady of the Lake

This weekend Seebo and I spent some time in Rockland County, which afforded me a bit of diversity in terms of my running route options. When we were last here in early August, he showed me Rockland Lake and the nearly three mile loop that encircles the lake. Since I had run in Central Park the day prior, I opted then just to walk around the lake while he ran.

Given that I've been trying to nurse my leg back to health, I was glad to have the option of doing one, two, or three loops around the lake. Ideally, I wanted to do three. The run started off a little uncomfortable as the "comfort station" I was expecting to be able to use was closed due to a pump malfunction. Signs indicated that station #3 was open - not that I knew where that was. So, the first half of my first loop was spent trying to figure out where the open station was. After two unsuccesful forays to structures that were closed until April, I finally found what I had been looking for.

The second loop went more smoothly and I was able to relax a bit more, enjoy the scenery, which included an ice sculpture as well as several different types of water fowl. My running never quite settled into feeling comfortable for too long. Towards the end of the second loop, I could feel my calf acting up again. The tightness/pain was there even during the first loop, but it was bearable and not too bad until towards the end of the second loop.

I decided that I would do a third loop after retrieving my iPod from the car and stretching out my leg a bit. I knew I probably wasn't going to make it all the way around the loop without stopping to stretch the leg, and I was right. If I really wanted to, I probably could have pushed it, but decided it wasn't worthwhile to do so. I think I stopped two or three times to stretch out my leg and then resumed with walking for a bit and then picked it back up to a run. I stopped my watch when I was walking to try to give me a sense of how long I was actually running. So, I'm not sure of the exact distance I ran, but I imagine I ran around 8.5 to 8.75 miles in all (75 minutes).

As a side note, I seem to have come down with some respiratory thing. It started Friday night and has progressed quite a bit since then. Not sure how this will effect my running. I'm 'supposed' to run tomorrow, but I may push it back to Tuesday depending on how I feel.

Oh ... and one more thing. I'm wondering if my new shoes are causing/contributing to my injury. Yes, of course they're Mizuno Wave Riders, the same brand and model I've worn for several years, but maybe this particular pair is a 'lemon'. Who knows... just a theory... but this calf problem seems to coincide with when I started wearing this particular pair. Hmmm. Maybe my calves don't like the color of the shoes.... very important!