14 mile day, etc.

late at night now after a long day so i will wiz through this one a bit. had promised myself that if i woke up and it was raining as hard as predicted i would give myself a much needed day off, but alas, the rain had passed already.

so out the door i went trying to take it easy for a bit. heart rate had been 46 so that was ok. but after 37 miles of running in the last four days plus any walking and golf range stuff, i knew i wasn't going to be fresh.

headed up binsey and over to port meadow and then down the thames, but the workers had the trail blocked and closed. this was one day after they told us it would not be closed while they worked on it, but turned around and went over the bridge and did the short loop aroun port meadow and headed to university parks. took the long way over and ran on some streets i hadn't run on in a couple of years and it was pretty enough. came to a dead end behind st margaret's college, but a guy painting a house let me through the gate and i headed over to the st margaret's entrance into the park. this brought me in near the pond and i did the short run around that and headed down the trail towards the back trail. passed a bench with a message saying marcus sutton ran here. will look that up later.

went out the back gate and down the trail along the water, once again missing the turn for marston road that i had missed when beth and i did this route. told myself i would double back and see why. was nice out along the water and instead of going all the way down i turned on the street where beth and i had doubled back to. then once on marston i found the path and ran back up it. i had estimated it to be about a mile and it took a little over 8 minutes to run back. the problem was that the trail was now blocked by a gated wooden door that was locked. i turned around and went back towards the road and found a new trail that would work, but the gate there was unlocked so sometimes this would not work either.

out the trail and crossed the street and up the long hill into headington park. went all the way up to gail's school and cut over and did a loop around her campus and then stopped at her office, but she was not in yet. asked the staff person there to tell her i had been by and headed back out the way i had come in and across to run down the hill. ever notice how downhill running beats up the legs more than uphill?

cut back and ran through town rather than go back the way i came. was shorter and i could see this was turning into a long run. i was still on tired legs but they felt strong, if not somewhat sore. going through town brought crowds into play but i weaved my way around them ok and headed back towards home. decided to cut through christ church and go back along the river. this worked fine and added less people and a prettier, softer trail.

came back through the industrial center trail and past osney island and then a long king george trail and up to the store for some breakfast stuff. then walked home. about 14 miles with the up and backs and turn arounds and various extra loops.

after usual at home stuff i went up to the range and hit some balls. still cold and windy but was able to get some decent work in. have to figure out my takeaway better as i seem to feel like i am doing it one way for the shorter clubs and one way for the longer ones. did hit some fairways woods today and saw some progress. originally i had hoped just to get back to where i was last june when i had gotten my handicap down to 11, but now want a better swing.

after the driving range i cleaned up and went to my monthly book club meeting. about 18 people were there and we had a lively discussion on this month's book- and somehow that morphed into politics and religion and books in general and raising kids, etc. was interesting seeing it from a UK perspective as well as the other cultures there. the heavy rain kept us there a little longer than we had planned but it did let up and we headed home for some dinner at 11pm.

all in all as ok a day as it could have been i guess. everyday an adventure. will put golf plans off until next week as we are in for 5 more days of rain. have lots of things i want to get done in the next few days to set up the next few months.

back tomorrow.