Training Log - December 1, 2011 (Plantation, Florida)

Rather than risk another annoying encounter in the hotel gym, I decided to go for a run outside and instead of driving to the beach, I opted to just run from the hotel in an effort to follow Runner's World's advice in its latest "go green" tips for runners.

I took off from the hotel at 4PM and headed towards the closest man-made canal in Plantation, Florida. These networks of canals can be found all around southeast Florida. They were primarily constructed in the early 1900 for drainage, flood protection and water storage purposes. Most of these canals have bike and walking paths running alongside, giving you miles of concrete trails that are free of traffic. In addition to these networks of paths every street in this area has sidewalks AND bike paths. I am so glad that I live in an area where local government is just as committed to the recreational needs of its population as they are here (add sarcastic undertone here, please).

My training schedule called for 6 slow miles at sub 8:30 pace. I ended up running an overall 8:10 minute per mile pace. I felt better today than yesterday. I'm sure that was largely due to the fact that I got to run outside. The weather was just fantastic. Temperatures were in the mid 70s, or as the local weatherman stated more winter like temperatures when compared to last week. Winter-like? Really? It's December 1st with temps in the mid 70s, only in Florida is that considered "winter appropriate". It was just perfect running weather.