So I decided today that I would find a park with trails for my run today. Unfortunately, it seems that although San Antonio has numerous parks, there are very few close to our house. The nearest one is about 10 miles away up 281 and west on Stone Oak Parkway. It is called Stone Oak Park - shocking, I know. Once I found it, I was actually very pleasantly suprised at how amazing it was. Honestly, it is way nicer than McAllister park in terms of the condition of the trails. Plus, the views are pretty amazing - all the big houses of the Spurs' players are up on the cliffs above. Not to mention that I saw two deer and about as many people on my run, so that was pretty awesome. Their is a 1 mile trail on one side of Stone Oak Parkway and then another one mile trail on the other side that evidently connects with another trailhead at some point. I really enjoyed the scenery, so I definitely think I will be running there a time or two during the week. I am sure it gets busier during the cooler hours of the day. At one point, the trail actually goes through a 100 or so foot long storm drain, which kind of made me nervous...needless to say I ran pretty quickly through it both times through. I just had visions of some creeper lurking there to chase after women running through the tunnel...anyways, just me being paranoid :)
The run itself felt a little tough. Im sure it was a combination of a new place and also a new type of pavement. I am used to running on smooth street asphalt, and these were rougher concrete trails. Oh well, I am sure I will get used to it over time. Part of the trail is really nice smooth concrete, so maybe I will try to make that part my normal route on shorter runs. I need to do some research to see if there is any way to speed up the amount of time it takes for my body to get in the groove of running and stop fighting the inertia. It seems to take me a good 10 minutes of every part of my body protesting before I start moving smoothly. I am hoping that sticking to an actual training schedule will help with conditioning. I keep saying this, but it will really help to have my Garmin watch so that I know how far I am running and dont overdo it by just guessing at this point.
Next run will be Saturday morning. 2 miles - I think I will get up early and go back to the park. I am going to try running before I walk the dogs so I have more energy and dont run out of steam at the very end like I did last time I walked the dogs and then ran.
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