McAlpine Park

Time I: ~14 mins
Distance I: ~2 miles
Time II: ~14 mins
Distance II: ~2 miles

Today was my first full day in Charlotte and it was started off at McAlpine Park which is where Footlocker South is usually hosted. I wasn't sure if I was going to run since my leg feels better later in the day and the early morning meeting didn't coincide with the natural warming up process. Meagan and her teammates set out for their long run while the guys headed out too. I would have loved to have joined either group if I were healthy, but that's not the case. Instead Jeff and I went to Harris Teeter (a local grocer, not nearly as cool as Food Lion. I'm actually a little upset that I never got to a Food Lion while I was in North Carolina. **A short flashback to sophomore year when the team trained at Duke and wasn't given much in the way of a per diem, the distance crew hit up Food Lion for cheap eats. I remember eating a vat of Food Lion brand mac-n-cheese that was like $.33 a box. We created a song for the product that was pretty catchy which included the line "you could feed the army and the navy... something... something... something." Anyway, mama's in the big bed! End flashback**) to pick up some juice for the athletes post run. When we returned to the parking lot I did a little backwards running to warm the leg up and then I stretched a bit more before setting out for a short 2 mile jog.

I ran until I saw Scott Simmons, the head coach at Queens, and then ran back with him. We chatted about the Lunartrainers and the Coaching Distance Summit that was recently hosted at Queens in the fall. The achilles felt pretty solid, and after a quick email to some dude's pregnant wife telling her to leave a key on the front left tire because homeboy locked his keys in the car, I set out for run part du. The second portion felt good until the last 5 mins when I could tell things were slowly tightening up. Overall, I was pleased to put in a bit of running, but still disappointed that I couldn't explore more of the park.