Two Wheel Blogs

Back when I was first running, I had three favorite routes around town. I've already raved on two of them in previous posts:

The Nickel Plate Trail: A converted railbed, its crushed limestone bed is the best running surface in this area. It runs five mostly tree-lined miles out of town, mixing some a few nice rises and falls with some flat stretches.

The SIUE Cross Country Course: Or Mud Mountain, as some locals refer to it, is both beautiful and challenging. You run into the woods, then climb your way back out.

A little to the south of the course, a canal runs through the woods towards the SIUE power plant. A path runs parallel to the canal, then connects up to the paths that the SIUE workers drive on to tend the prairie restoration area. To call them "roads" would be kind. They're just two lines of tire-pressed grass. It's real rough, but I love it.

I fell in love with the canal route the first time I saw it. Five years ago, during the high school cross country team's practice, I was running behind two senior runners, who took off in a direction I'd not gone before. I followed them over the Tower Lake dam, then turned left down a path that led to the canal, which twists and it turns on its way to the power plant. The canal path isn't very long, but it doesn't have be. It just is, and that's enough for me.

I did a 5-mile run on the Nickel Plate yesterday. I've not been running on back-to-back days, figuring it was good to give my knee a day of rest. But my knee was feeling pretty good today, and the weather... Ah, the weather! The weather this week has been as beautiful as last week's was cold, wet, and unpleasant. I wanted to run. Just a short one.

I also wanted to ride. So, I packed up the necessary gear, hopped on my cyclocross bike (thanks again, Boz!), and rode out to the SIUE power plant, where I chained the bike, put on my running shoes, and hit the canal path. I quickly found myself chasing three deer who had had the path to themselves before I arrived. (We'd see each other a few more times before the run was over.) It felt great to be running the path again. Okay, in terms of my stride, it still felt weird, as my right leg is still learning how to be a leg again. But to be there, running next to the canal, then following the paths made by the SIUE vehicles... it felt good to be back.

I'd used Google Pedometer to measure the route a long time ago, and I recalled it being a little over a mile (1.3 miles, as it turns out). I just wanted a short run, so I did two loops and called it a day. I got back into my bike gear and rode home. I rode on grass or gravel surfaces as much as possible to get as much cyclocross benefit as possible. I even got off the bike and hoisted it over a barrier a couple of times, something I'll have to do several times during this Sunday's race. And as I did -- and as I struggled to get used to clipping into the eggbeater pedals -- I realized something very important: I'm going to get my a** handed to me this Sunday. But that's okay. When it is, I will accept it graciously, with open arms. I'll say, "That fell off several laps ago. Thanks for picking it up for me."

Back home, I logged my mileage, as I always do. As I did, I noticed that tonight's little 2.6-mile run were miles #99 and #100 since I first started trying to run again back on August 9th. A hundred miles in three months. It's been a long time coming. Right now, I have no idea if there'll be another hundred miles after them. I hope so, but I don't take it as a given. I just plan to keep lacing them up and hitting the trail as I feel like it. I hope I feel foo a long time to come. And I also feel like clipping into the eggbeaters this Sunday so I can my a** handed to me in the C Race at the Harvest Bubba.