Alabama trail running and lots of dog pictures.

I went to Alabama this week.  I ran.  I came home.

In case you don't know, the drive from where I am in Illinois (almost Wisconsin) to eastern Alabama is pretty freaking long.  You could drive straight through (about 12 hours), but I am someone who does not run on caffeine or nicotine, so when I get tired, I have to stop and spend the night.  This means that I spend one entire day driving straight down Illinois (State motto: "The longest, boringest, and brokest state and the Land of Lincoln") and stop and spend the night after I cross the border into Kentucky.  I then get up and drive for about 5.5 hours the next day, crossing 3 states and getting to eastern Alabama where my mother lives.

The challenge presented to me whilst in Alabama is this:  I still needed to get my training runs in.  Last time I was down at the mom's I was chased by all sorts of country dogs when I ran near my mom's house (they barked in a southern accent, I swear), so I wasn't in the mood to take my chances there again.  Instead I did some googling and found that there was a trail in nearby Anniston--The Chief Ladiga Trail.  Actually, the end of the trail was in Anniston, and it started at the Georgia-Alabama state line.  After scoping out its exact location with my mom one day (and enjoying the fact that there were bathrooms there!), I headed back the next day for some speed work.

There is a quaint little park at the end of the trail in memory of this man.

I was there-no lie.

I did a ladder workout, and, because I had actually taken 2 days off after my long run this week instead of one, my legs and my foot were feeling really good.  I slammed out 7 miles on the trail, and my foot only felt slightly weird afterwards.  But I did some passive stretches of my big toe and popped some naproxen and it woke up feeling like a million bucks the next day.  Speaking of the next day, I went back to the trail and did 6 easy miles.  The scenery is pretty gorgeous (very un-Illinois-like), and they have cool signs like this:

Who knew the Litterbug was a smoker.

This was about 3 miles along the trail.  There is a university here that has the "Gamecocks" as their mascot.  I'm serious.

After my workouts on the trail, I got to go back and spend time with my mom and her little dog, and, at the end of my stay, I took my mother and her dog back to Illinois with me so they could spend time visiting with my other family members.  That little dog (unfortunately named Pinky) is a good traveler, although she does tend to hog the backseat and any beds in which she sleeps with a human:

She needs an entire seat in the car.  She has two beds and a blanket back there.

I had a tempo run on the training schedule yesterday, but I didn't get to run it because I would have had to do it that 8 mile run on a treadmill, and that's just not something I can do mentally.  I was also too tired to do it when I got home (amazing how sitting driving in a car for 6.5 hours will get you all pooped).  Thus, it is on tap for this morning, where it looks like spring has finally sprung up here in northern Illinois.  I'll let you know how it goes (and what I wore since it is finally somewhat warm up here) when I get back.