out of place

I had a very disciplined, slow, easy 5 mile run this morning at LBL.  HA!!  I'm sort of serious about that. Between being a drunken piece of shit, the holidays, Misty being sick, me being sick I've run very little since the 50 mile in mid November.  So, I'm doing my best to salvage a shitty mileage start to the new year by doing some cramming.  I had a pretty good rebound week last week and am off to a good start this week.  Today was just a junk mile day.

I finally found the trailhead to the infamous Thumper.  I had a short day yesterday so I had the afternoon to go exploring.  I've heard about this trail several times over the years.  Most recently when Larry K and I encountered each other a couple of Saturday's ago at Forest Ridge.  We talked about it briefly, or should I say "he" talked about it because I wasn't doing much talking during the mile or so we ran together.  I was too busy huffing and puffing in a attempt to hang with him.

Immediately I didn't feel at home.  I had to park across the street near a utilities entrance because the only other parking was at the curb and my POS car is out of place in this neighborhood.  As I went through the gate there was a small sign that said, "Tenants and Residents Only".   I went on through the gate and gave a friendly wave to a young mother whose kids were playing in the playground.  I thought I could see where the trail was and walked like I had been there before and knew what I was doing.  The trail head was very apparent and I headed down.  It didn't take long to get to a major turn.  Instead of going straight down I turned left and headed in the direction of the houses in the neighborhood.  The rest of the adventure is little hard to describe besides getting lost some but finding my way and having an elapsed time of 1:15.  I did enough running to roll my left ankle twice and get in at least 4 miles.