A nice Sunday run

We only had to do 8 miles today. Piece of cake.

I was given another chance at choosing the trail, so I opted for one I knew was flat and we hadn't been there, a plus. The minus was that I couldn't find a map of the trails to plot out an exact course. I did find a description which stated that there were over 10 miles of trails, so distance-wise I thought we would be okay. My pick of the day: Shoreline park in Mountain View. Jeff and I have played golf there and I knew there were some decent paths.

As I was getting ready to leave, Bam started getting VERY excited. Especially when she saw the running shoes. Sadly she had to stay home. No dogs allowed at most of Shoreline. That's one strike against it. Jeff said she whined and pouted for quite a while after I left. Poor Bam. Until he fed her that is. Then she seemed to forget all about me. Huh.

Tina picked me up and we headed over the bridge. As we got close to the park we started seeing "Race...this way" signs. Ooooo, I hope it's not too crowded. I didn't know there was going to be a race here today. We wound around the road to a parking area and started off. We kept seeing banners and a couple of water stops for the race, but no people. Finally we passed the start/finish line and the race hadn't even begun yet. Good for us...less people on the trail. It was a fairly nice trail, kind of straight and boring, but at least it was a change of scenery. The last section was shaded and kind of 'woodsy' which was nice. We hit our four miles and headed back. On the way back we saw a bunch of walkers. Guess they finally started the event. As we passed the start line we heard them calling for the 6-minute mile and faster runners. Hmmm, I think we're about to get run down. With a little over a mile to go we were passed by some guys who were seriously cruising. They were running a 5K and man they were RUNNING. Pretty impressive.

The volunteers, mostly a bunch of teenagers, kept cheering us on thinking that we were in the race. Tina finally told some of them 'you don't have to cheer for us, we didn't pay.' Hahahahahaha!

At the end of the run my GPS read: 8.04 miles in about 1:27. Nicely done.

Next Saturday: the DREADED 20 miler. (ominous music plays in the background)