Sunday, January 4, 2009

Coming out out of a fog of sickness and from a land where it is flat

My apologies for lack of posting.

Recently, I have been in New Orleans (NOLA) visiting in-laws, and then on New Year's Eve I came down with a flu which had me bedridden for 5+ days. Quite a respite from running!

In my limited knowledge about NOLA, it is not a city where people go to run. There are some beautiful parks: Audobon and City Park, for example, and many people run in these parks, but, again, most of the stories I have heard about NOLA include references to food and heavy drinking.

I did run while I was there; however, as many may know from their visits to NOLA, it is very flat. There are no hills, and if there is an incline, it is hard to notice. Where I was staying, the runs were in a neighborhood that was laid out very well so a non-native would not get lost. The streets running vertically where numbered consecutively while the streets running horizontally were labeled. My runs consisted of timed loops, over and over. I would run down a named street until it hit a busy 4 lane road, and then run on the numbered street until it hit a named street to run the numbered blocks back to the house. This loop would repeat depending on how much time I had. Also, the weather. It was never below 65 degrees while we were there. This was an enjoyable event for me, but my Grendel was panting early, and the style of the runs changed from longer to 2X a day shorter runs.

Then, there is the flu. This flu has kept me in bed for most of the last week. It started with a sore throat, which I intelligently ignored, and then our New Year's eve was spent inside watching movies instead of downtown roaming around. My biggest upset of 2008!

I do look forward to posting in 2009!

No comments: