New Year

January. The miles are flowing. A lot of them back on the CB State Park trails, where the semi softness of the surfaces cushion the impact and force of every foot ball. I think I'd run just about every mile off road if I could. Taking the long view...

But I'm chalk full of contradictions so I went out a few days ago and put down a solid ten miler on the roads. And the short view of trying to pick up a little more speed on the asphalt. Plus its a different course that I hadn't run in several months. Was nice to reacquaint. I closed the last two miles @ 7 mins/ mile. Fluid and steady. Strong.

New Years Day and it was a meandering 12.7 mile run that took me into Kure Beach. I ran under a Happy New Years banner and past the detritus from the previous night's revelries. I'm the only one there. The solitude is pleasing to me. The views of the ocean are dazzling as always from my vantage running on the boardwalk. I decided to end the run running on the beach, up to the north end pier and back. I turned around literally under the pier. Was low tide so the sand was packed fairly firm where the ocean's waters had receded from.

More two a days. Late Saturday afternoon its a harder four miler on a familiar route which takes me on the inner island dirt roads... then ends with about one mile on the main road in Carolina Beach. I pictured it last Saturday as a scene in a race that's finishing on Lake Park Blvd... fans are lining both sides of the street... us racers follow behind a police car which leads us towards the lake and into the final turn before its one last sprint to the finish... the noise of it all is just one big swirling din in the womb of my mind.

All of which helped me finish my tempo run in a 6:08 mile as more rain began to fall... and the remaining light of the day faded into darker and darker shades of grey.

Happy New Years, here's to 2015.