Higdon's Last Stand

I got to the Massapequa Preserve this morning at 7:30, pumped for my two hour run. I was just happy that I was up early enough to squeeze it in.  I started at Sunrise Highway this time so I didn't have to cross the busy thoroughfare like last week when I started at Merrick Road.  I headed north. The weather was warm, but because the path is mostly shaded, the heat wasn't a problem.   There were more people out than I expected at that hour.  I never felt alone.  The Massapequa Preserve ends along the Bethpage State Parkway and turns into Bethpage State Park, home of the world famous golf course where the U.S. Open was played twice.  It gets hilly here too.  They aren't very steep hills, more rolling.  There were a lot more cyclists up on this part of the course.  The path got crowded at a couple of turns.  I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn't get clipped or run over.  Close to the one hour mark, I was in the parking lot by the baseball fields.  I ran through the woods before turning around to make it an even one hour.  This was tricky because the ground was uneven.  Maybe trail running is not for me.  The run back went by pretty quickly.  I noticed I was going to arrive at my car a few minutes shy of two hours.  Toward the end, I veered off onto a dirt path which got me to my car at 1:59:45.  Total mileage was 13.91, an 8:36 pace.  Goodbye Higdon Half Marathon Plan.  You've been good to me in the past, but it's time to shake things up a little.

I noticed during my last couple of longish runs that right around 8 miles, my bones started to feel achy.  I'm not sure if this is due to poor diet, inflammation, or the inevitable age-related creakiness.  I have a feeling that I'm not going to have a lot more marathons up my sleeve in the future.  The number 3 sounds good.  I will continue to run as long as my legs allow, but this long distance business?  As the sage Detective Murtaugh said once or twice or four times, "I'm too old for this shit!"

My oldest daughter had her last track meet this afternoon.  I wanted her to run the 800, but she's as lazy as her mother.  Instead, she ran 5 relay races.  Unlike her mother, she's damn fast.  She was always able to pull ahead once the baton was passed to her and as the anchor, she easily finished first.  She's a natural athlete.  I keep wondering how far she would go if she actually put some effort into it.  Yes, I'm a proud mama.

The Stratton Faxon Fairfield Half Marathon is two weeks away!

Postscript:  Noomi Rapace is a great actress (with a rockin' body, might I add).  I thought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was good and suspenseful (although, the American version is much easier to watch with Daniel Craig in the lead).  The Girl Who Played With Fire was good until the hokey twist at the end (I won't give it away).  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest had potential, but I felt like there was a lot of build up that went flat fast.  The acting all around was solid.  There were a lot of different characters.  It was hard to keep track of them with their similar sounding foreign names while reading the subtitles.   I am not a xenophobe, by any means.  I usually love foreign films.  My brain might be getting too old to process them correctly.  Murtaugh.