semi-recovery run and a sweet find

I got caught up at work yesterday and almost missed my run. I headed out for a late lunchtime run at 1pm. The weather was mid 60s and sunny. I would have kicked myself if I had stayed inside yesterday. I'm still recovering from Saturday's accidental marathon so I didn't shoot for hard tempo today. I ran smoothly and at what felt like a comfortable, not too fast pace.

I ran the standard work loop clockwise and still dipped below 6:00/mi on a few of the descents briefly. I ended up keeping a pretty good pace and wasn't gasping for breath at any point like I usually am when I run this route as a tempo run. The trails were dry and it was great to be out running in the nice weather. I look forward to the sun setting even later this summer so that I can get back to doing a run here and there in the Bridle Trails after work again like I did almost every Friday evening last year.

Even though I wasn't trying to run fast by any means I still wound up running the 6mi loop fairly quick:

Time: 42:25
Dist: 6.0
Avg: 7:04/mi

That surprised me.

In other news, last summer I participated in a health screening event at work and as a reward got an AmEx gift card. I promptly forgot about it until I found it the other night while cleaning my desk at home so I figured I should spend it. Unfortunately the list of places where the card was accepted (mostly online) wasn't very attractive... women's clothing stores, rental car agencies, eyeglass stores, power tools, etc… I saw that Zappos.com was one of the merchants so I looked at what they had in the way of running shoes. Their prices weren't very good (same as retail) but their selection was decent so I did some research and ordered a pair of these:

I've been curious about the Brooks Cascadias for a while. I'd seen people wearing them at the Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival and on a few of the Ultra runner blogs that I read. They sound like a beginning trail shoe that's good on pavement as well. I probably run on about 30% roads, 50% trails / dirt shoulders, and the rest sidewalks. I hope these end up working out for me. They were almost free with the gift card plus free next-day shipping from Zappos (sweet!) so I won't be bummed if I just don't like them.

My hope is that they'll be good enough that I can wear them to the Mt. Si 50K in 2.5 weeks.