Animal of the day? NO! It's an animal of the run...

Today's animal of the run is brought to you by the letter "C" for Cat.  I went on a fantastically long run today because the weather was so warm in Bethesda today...mid 60s!  Who could ignore that?!  Instead of going on my normal runs around my condo, I left straight from USU and tried out some of trails around Bethesda and Silver Spring.  On my run, I must have seen about 20 cats!  They were all so cute and fluffy!  The ones I saw on my way back towards USU made the back half of my run a little more bearable.  The best ones were a mommy cat and two kittens!  I couldn't resist stopping to pet them.  

"C" is for Cat

In terms of the actual run, because it was so warm and I felt so great on the way out, I definitely over-reached myself. This was bound to happen at some point.  I ran about 15 miles using the Georgetown Branch Trail, the Green Trail, and finally the Sligo Creek Trail.  I wouldn't recommend this run in anything but broad daylight, as some of the trails take you behind some isolated warehouse areas, but on a bright, beautiful day, there were some other runners/cyclists out.  Anyways, I'm not sure if I was up to run 15 miles quite yet, but I just felt so great that I didn't want to turn around.  When I finally did, I knew I was going to struggle on my way back because my calves and Achilles immediately started protesting when I started to run again after stopping to turn around...and I still had about 7.5 more miles to get back. Uh oh.  As indicated by my post, I made it back, albeit at a much slower pace, and I even got to pet some kittens and cats along the way!   

To try to mitigate the inevitable soreness of tomorrow, I've been stretching (which is literally the bane of my existence), and trying to keep my feet up. Even if I am sore, I need to start lengthening my runs anyways, and what better way to start than with great weather and cats?