Old dog - New Trick

I strapped on my vffs this morning and got out of the house (which is very nice and I totally have house envy.  It's not nice to plot your parent's death so that you can inherit their house) for my regular Saturday run. I'm usually running at or a bit below 4700 feet and today I was at about 5600 feet.  I usually run/walk about 6500 steps in a session, and today I did about 7500 steps because my dad lives on a hill that has a loooong (1300 steps) steep gravel driveway.  That was an interesting way to warm my feet up for the run.  I hit the road and begin my sprint intervals.  The road was hillier than what I usually run both in terms of altitude and length up and down the hill.

I forgot to take my albuterol before I ran, but my breathing was okay, even on the long climbs.  Ultimately I did 5 out of the 6 sprint intervals because on the 6th sprint while going long downhill my right forefoot felt "funny".  It didn't exactly hurt, and it didn't necessarily feel like anything was wrong, but it definitely felt different that anything I have felt running, so I decided not to continue running just to be safe.  I walked the rest of the way home and took my shoes off and ate breakfast.  It's after lunch and both of my feet feel fine.  I consider my decision to walk the rest of the way home and skip the last sprint to be an excellent one.  The last time I tried to walk through something feeling "funny" in my left forefoot I ended up lame for a month due to an overuse injury.  I put this run in the win column.

There was a really loud cow that mooed as I passed her both ways.  It took me a while to figure out what that strange noise was - it  has been about 20 years since I heard a real cow moo.  There was also a loud bird in a field tweeting away as I passed.  I've never heard that particular bird species before.  It had a very white belly and under wing and a dusty brown topcoat.  The countryside was fairly quiet except for those two animals.  I love how running gets me out to see things up close that I miss while passing by in a car.  You get to know a place differently when you run there.