Regrets and Painkillers
Last night when I got home from work, I felt like getting some exercise. The temperature was in the 90's, but was not really bothering me all day, so I decided to take my chances.
I had planned to jog near the lake, so I pulled up a map of the area. Lake Shore Drive looked like it might be scenic, and surrounds 2/3 of the lake. That was my goal.
I was coming from the West-North-West, and started going clockwise around. By the time I was halfway around, I was dead tired. 20 minutes of jogging hills and dodging goose poop was enough for me. I am used to a treadmill, where I can go 35-40 minutes at a constant pace or 6.6MPH while watching an episode of MacGyver, but this was something else entirely. I looked at my watch, looked across the lake, and decided "What the hell. It would take just as long to turn around and go back from here." Yeah. I was wrong. Looking at the map, now, I was realistically maybe 1/3 of the way around the lake, not having noticed before that the Southern end was much wider. I walked until I had my heartrate back down below 120. Ran for maybe another 5-10 minutes, finding yet more hills, goose poop, and now rush-hour traffic. That was nothing, considering what I still had to face.
Since I don't live directly on the lakeside, when I got back to the Western edge, I cut off away from the lake, and onto the back roads toward my house. Had I gone more North, I would have faced less hills, but more overall distance. At this point, I just wanted to get this jog over with. Knowing well that I would be in for a tough climb, I turned onto Warren Drive anyway. Note: Usually when I jog, I descend this road, and had yet to ascend it. Never again. Ever.
Warren Drive is the devil. It's got to be a thirty-degree incline the whole way up. I clocked it with my car, and the hill lasts .3 miles. Fuck that fucking place. When I was about 100 feet from the top, my legs started to give out. It's as if they had fallen asleep, gone numb, and forgot how to function. WTF, Warren Drive! What did you do?!
...I did make it to the top, and promptly sat on a guardrail for about 30 seconds, the first time I stopped since I left my house over an hour prior. From here, it was an easy .45 miles home, with only small hills and thankfully, no more poo.
I got home, drenched my face in the sink, downed about a liter of water, and sat in a chair by the air-conditioner to reflect on the whole ordeal:
-Lake Shore Drive sucks; you can hardly see the lake through trees, houses, and overgrown plants. There is shit all over the road, and the lake smells just as bad.
-Warren Drive, as I said, is the devil. Warren was most assuredly a bastard coated bastard.
-The sun goes well behind trees and mountain before 6PM. I was only exposed to direct sunlight for maybe 25 minutes. I somehow still got mildly sunburned.
-These are not running shoes.
-I did not expect the run to take an hour and 15 minutes.
At least now I can say I've done it. Putnam Lake is my bitch...right?
I had planned to jog near the lake, so I pulled up a map of the area. Lake Shore Drive looked like it might be scenic, and surrounds 2/3 of the lake. That was my goal.
I was coming from the West-North-West, and started going clockwise around. By the time I was halfway around, I was dead tired. 20 minutes of jogging hills and dodging goose poop was enough for me. I am used to a treadmill, where I can go 35-40 minutes at a constant pace or 6.6MPH while watching an episode of MacGyver, but this was something else entirely. I looked at my watch, looked across the lake, and decided "What the hell. It would take just as long to turn around and go back from here." Yeah. I was wrong. Looking at the map, now, I was realistically maybe 1/3 of the way around the lake, not having noticed before that the Southern end was much wider. I walked until I had my heartrate back down below 120. Ran for maybe another 5-10 minutes, finding yet more hills, goose poop, and now rush-hour traffic. That was nothing, considering what I still had to face.
Since I don't live directly on the lakeside, when I got back to the Western edge, I cut off away from the lake, and onto the back roads toward my house. Had I gone more North, I would have faced less hills, but more overall distance. At this point, I just wanted to get this jog over with. Knowing well that I would be in for a tough climb, I turned onto Warren Drive anyway. Note: Usually when I jog, I descend this road, and had yet to ascend it. Never again. Ever.
Warren Drive is the devil. It's got to be a thirty-degree incline the whole way up. I clocked it with my car, and the hill lasts .3 miles. Fuck that fucking place. When I was about 100 feet from the top, my legs started to give out. It's as if they had fallen asleep, gone numb, and forgot how to function. WTF, Warren Drive! What did you do?!
...I did make it to the top, and promptly sat on a guardrail for about 30 seconds, the first time I stopped since I left my house over an hour prior. From here, it was an easy .45 miles home, with only small hills and thankfully, no more poo.
I got home, drenched my face in the sink, downed about a liter of water, and sat in a chair by the air-conditioner to reflect on the whole ordeal:
-Lake Shore Drive sucks; you can hardly see the lake through trees, houses, and overgrown plants. There is shit all over the road, and the lake smells just as bad.
-Warren Drive, as I said, is the devil. Warren was most assuredly a bastard coated bastard.
-The sun goes well behind trees and mountain before 6PM. I was only exposed to direct sunlight for maybe 25 minutes. I somehow still got mildly sunburned.
-These are not running shoes.
-I did not expect the run to take an hour and 15 minutes.
At least now I can say I've done it. Putnam Lake is my bitch...right?