Another Tuesday, another adventure! Today I traveled to Hempstead Lake State Park. Nestled between Peninsula Blvd and the Southern State Parkway is this sweet park with picnic tables, a playground, and a trail surrounding the lake. I decided to adventure around here to get away from the traffic while I ran.

There’s a 3 mile loop around the biggest area of the lake. This trail is not paved and was a bit muddy from yesterday’s rain- but I was the only person out there on this chilly, spring day. Be aware that the path is a bit uneven and may have recently been walked by the local equestrian center (I looked down for most of my run). But when I did look up, there was a beautiful view of the lake without a cloud in the sky.

Today’s training run consisted of race pace pickups. My plan was to run between 4.5- 5 miles with 6 x 3 minutes at my goal pace (9:10) or faster. As my training has progressed, my recovery time between pickups is down to two and a half minutes. My warmup mile was steady at 9:30 then I based my pickups off of effort- only looking at my watch for the time. It felt great minus my nagging right calf! After I cooled down, I took some time to look at the scenery 🙂

I took a page out of Pam’s book and did a jumping picture to celebrate my 9:07 average pace 🙂 I haven’t mastered it like she has, but I’ll practice. Do you guys have a “signature” race picture? Mine is biting my medal like the Olympic athletes!

Catch ya on the flip side,
Louise