Sunday Funday

 

We finally got some decent weather on Sunday. It was sunny, dry and warm, which has not been a common weather combination lately. David and I decided to start our training with a trail run at Lake Lansing Park North.

 

We do some of our running on the road, but we like to do a fair amount of trail running. Your speed suffers a bit with this type of running, but as I mentioned in my intro, speed is not really one of my attributes anyway. Besides, the scenery and the peacefulness of being in the woods more than make up for it. It's also a lot easier on the knees than running on pavement.

 

This was David's first trip to Lake Lansing Park North, which is astounding to me because he's lived in the area since his college days. (Over the past several months I have introduced him to many trails he hasn't been exposed to before, which has been fun.) David absolutely loved this trail and is already wondering when we can go back.

 

Lake Lansing is a county park which is actually across the street from the lake. The trails don't go around the lake, as some people assume. Instead, the trails traverse wooded areas and some marsh land. (There are sturdy well-maintained boardwalks over the marshes.) There are approximately 10 miles of trails in all.

 

We chose the "green" loop, which is 3.3 miles. We could easily have done more, but we wanted to save some energy for riding.

 

The trail has a many shaded, piney areas, which are my favorite spots. It also has some fairly significant hills, which is what David really liked about it. Although the Dopey takes place at Disney World, which means it is quite flat, some of our upcoming races (namely a 10-miler called the Crim which we plan to run in August) are hilly. We definitely need hill practice.

 

Since David is a much faster runner than I am, he usually runs ahead for a while and then doubles back to where I am to say hi before continuing. Sometimes he will come back and take Maddy with him for a while so she can experience the feeling of actually running fast for a bit. (At Lake Lansing he found this bench to sit and wait for me for a while.)

 

 

We ended our training with a 10-mile bike ride around town. To say we've gotten a lot of rain this spring would be a huge understatement. Because of this, it's been difficult to get out on any mountain bike trails, which I would prefer to riding around town. Also due to the rain, our local bike path, which is normally a good alternative when the mountain bike trails are too muddy, is out of commission. It runs along the river and half of it is currently underwater. But even meandering around city streets was an enjoyable way to round out our Sunday of training.