Road to Oz
Did a destination run this morning, point to point home from Reba's house along this route.
The route is a journey that starts me through tidy working class suburbs which then transform to more dilapidated inner-ring suburbs until I run through a small, wooded area, cross Cobbs Creek and find myself in the familiar confines of Southwest Philly ("Don't you know you in the ghetto!" one boy shouted at me this morning). Its a bit like going to Oz in that at some point the outlines of the alabaster (I love that word) skyscrapers of Center City appear on the horizon and get ever closer. Only instead of the yellow brick road I am resigned to running the Chester Pike, complete with strip malls and four lanes of traffic, and then Chester Ave, with its sagging rowhouses and empty storefronts.
But it is a practical run and for once I know that, literally if not metaphorically, I am going somewhere.
Weather continues mild (hi 50s) and humid, with the greys intensifying the closer I got to home. All in all, 8+ miles in 69:29. A bit slower than yesterday's comparable distance, but its all just penguin running at this point (i.e., no need for speed).
The route is a journey that starts me through tidy working class suburbs which then transform to more dilapidated inner-ring suburbs until I run through a small, wooded area, cross Cobbs Creek and find myself in the familiar confines of Southwest Philly ("Don't you know you in the ghetto!" one boy shouted at me this morning). Its a bit like going to Oz in that at some point the outlines of the alabaster (I love that word) skyscrapers of Center City appear on the horizon and get ever closer. Only instead of the yellow brick road I am resigned to running the Chester Pike, complete with strip malls and four lanes of traffic, and then Chester Ave, with its sagging rowhouses and empty storefronts.
But it is a practical run and for once I know that, literally if not metaphorically, I am going somewhere.
Weather continues mild (hi 50s) and humid, with the greys intensifying the closer I got to home. All in all, 8+ miles in 69:29. A bit slower than yesterday's comparable distance, but its all just penguin running at this point (i.e., no need for speed).
posted by seebo | 8:39 AM
2 Comments:
I miss warnings about the ghetto. Maybe I should spend more time running in Oakland.
By the way, I'm skeptical about your base metabolism rate. I read in a distinguished nutritional journal (Running Times, I think) that a basal rate is on the order of 1200 kcal/day. For actual metabolism, you add 105 kcal/mile/day, plus the energy to get out of bed.
Tell Reba that Silas recently got his first hit from Australia - but it looks like an accident. Somebody googling for "cave monster".
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