50k's and a Birthday Party

Yesterday, Saturday, was a very busy day for me. I had plans for running in the evening, but I wanted to do sort of a warm up run in the morning. Around 9:30 a.m. I went to a local park. My plan was to run 4.5 miles, it's a 1.5 mile loop track. I started very slow and ran the first mile around 11:30, this included stops to stretch. I ran the next two at 8:30, this gave me three miles, and I decided to go ahead and make it an even six, so I ran the next two at 8:00 and ran a cool down mile at 9.

Next up was a date with my granddaughter. She had asked me Friday evening to take her to a classmates birthday party. I wasn't clear on the details, but I knew I had to pick her up at 12:30 for a 1:00 start. I got to the address and it was a place called "Pump it Up." It's a well run party place for kids but appointment only. They start you out with a safety video, then take you into the first play room. A lot of air pumped up play areas. Slides, jump areas, ball play areas, and in the 2nd room more of the same but including a obstacle course. After watching the kids for a while, I had to do the slide myself. It's a good workout getting to the top of the slide, but then the fun begins. I did it about 4 times, then in the next play room I did the obstacle course twice. After about an hour playing, and getting the kids good and tired, they take you to the party room. Pizza, vegetable trays, and plenty to drink. I was hungry now, and the pizza was as good as at any of these type of places I've ever been. But I think they bring it in. Cake, open the presents and then the show is over. About two hours total, perfect. My granddaughter wanted to go somewhere else, but as soon as she got in the car, she went fast asleep, perfect. I took her home and then prepared for the rest of my evening.

A friend, Joel, is running his first 100 miler in a couple of weeks, and he wanted to get in a long night run. I had not promised to run it all or any of it with him, I wanted to see what plans my granddaughter had for me first, but since things seemed to be working out, I decided to go for it. I got there, and there were two others there to run one loop with us. A loop is about 10 miles. It was daylight when we started, but it was dark before we finished the first loop. When we finished, the two dropped, and we gained another runner for one loop. We finished that one, and then Joel and I did the last loop together. We finished after midnight, and did just under 31 miles. So I'm calling it our midnight 50k.