Umstead Park

Today was an awesome day for the outdoors. I spent most of the day at Umstead State Park (Raleigh, NC). This morning's run was supposed to be 80 minutes of easy running. I wanted to put in some faster running, so I ended up altering the workout. After 30 minutes of easy running, I put in a 20 minute tempo run on the track. I was feeling good so I increased the pace each mile - 5:48, 5:42, 5:38, 2:47 (3.5M tempo). The tempo run felt fairly comfortable. The thought of running a longer tempo cross my mind, but I decided to just finish off the run with another 30 minutes of steady running. I ended up with 12.5 miles for the training run.

Since I'm on leave till the 23rd of this month, I'm taking advantage of the time by touring the many different places I've wanted to see around North Carolina. I decided to go to Umstead Park in Raleigh. A runner I met from a race in Raleigh once told me about the Umstead trails. Not planning my leave, I just picked up and went. Small cooler filled with ice and gatorade, running shoes, change of clothes and the Trek mountain bike were all packed in a matter of minutes. I got to the park around noon and took some time to study the park map. It was quite surprising to see many different trails (bridle trails, cycling, hiking, & running trails). I could not resist running on the trails, especially after making the drive from Fort Bragg. Let me tell you... the Umstead trails are awesome. You can run the single path trails through the woods (up to 20 miles) or the bridle trails which has about a 10 ft pathway. Since I put in 12.5 miles this morning, I decided to go for a very easy run of about 40 minutes and not worry about pace. As I ran through the trails I forgot all about the time. I was trying to enjoy every bit of the run. I came back at 50 minutes covering only a small portion of the Umstead trails.

A 20 oz. gatorade was all I needed to get a boost of energy and mount my trail bike. Like the easy run I'd just finished, I took the bike ride easy and enjoyed the scenery. Of course, I had to take pictues of the awesome trails. I biked for an hour and was still not able to hit all the trails. Oh well, this gives me a reason to come back.

Today's Run: am: 1:22:10 pm: 49:23