Tuesday, December 11, 2007

12 miles in El Centro

So yesterday was suppossed to be my long/slow run. 12 miles. Unfortunatly I spent most of my day travelling so I did not get a chance to get it done. So I decided that I would get it done today. Now although I have been here maybe 6 times in the past two years, I am still not familiar with the roads between the major avenues. But I really did not want to spend 2 hours on the dreadmill soooo I asked some of the locals. They suggested I go to one of the local High schools where they have brand new tracks. Not really what I was looking for, I was kind of hoping there was a hidden park somewhere. But No. Still a track is better than nothing. So I started out from the Hotel, it was about 65 - 70 degrees. Nice and comfy. I was wearing a tech T and shorts. Figured with the run I would work up enough heat to keep me warm.

I was a bit worried about how to get to the track since the roads seem to be pretty busy. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that El Centro has invested in sidewalks, Allot of them. In fact Just about every place I look there are sidewalks, miles of them. Its funny Westchester NY has close to a million people and its hard to find a sidewalk outside of village centers. Yet here in El Centro "de Nada" there are sidewalks even in front of huge barren plots of land.

Anyhow, the run to the track was about 2 miles. There were some "questionable" areas where the doors seemed to be barred. Or shall I say there were bars with a little door behind them if you get my drift. Also they seem to like to leave their dogs out front, which a couple of times caused me to nearly Cr$p in my pants when I would suddenly find myself with a Sudden barking right next to me. Mostly though they were either tied out or behind fences.

Anyhow finally I got to the track and it was pretty nice. It was pretty active too. There was a tennis court next to it that was being used by local teens ( maybe the HS team?) and a little league soccer game going on in an adjoining field.

I spent the next hour and a half running loops on the track. Nice alternative to the treadmill. One thing though. In the time since I had left it got freaking cold ! I mean probably it dropped 15 degrees in the 2 hours since I left, by the time I was back at the hotel my fingers were numb from the cold.

Anyhow I managed to get my run in, so I felt great!

My stats were the following:

distance 12.05 Miles
Time 2:09:44
Max HR 158
Ave HR 135
calories 1172

2 comments:

Pam said...

whoa, that's not as boring as a treadmill but I still think you deserve props for that monotonous workout. Pam (fellow jh.orger)

Ski Dad said...

monotounous...thats a good word for it :)