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March 2, 2006
Bison Poo...
...and other fabulous details of Yellowstone National Park.
Today I ran 6 miles, and my car went a little over 11 miles. Grrrrr. Luckily, I have a little sqeak-by room from the rest of this week, so I'm hoping I can make it through the week and beat my car in highest mileage.
The bison are driving my batty. Really now. Many of them stay down in the low country during the winter, where the weather is most mild. Down here, they can dig through the snow and chew on dead, brown, entirely nutrition-less grass. I haven't run on the Gardiner railroad bed trail in maybe a week. Since I was last there, the ground has started thawing, and the soft, wet trail got trampled by bison. Not only are there huge divots from their feet everywhere, but their piles of poo are all up and down the trail. Bison poo is about a 6 inch tall pile that's perhaps a foot in diameter! We're talking serious poo pies! Once the spring melt really comes, and the bison return to some higher elevations, I think that trail is going to need some serious rehab. However, at least there were no bison trying to share the trail with me today. I had it all to myself.
Today I did another tiny workout. 3 miles warmup, then 2x3:10 at slightly faster than 5K effort with 2:10 easy jogging in between. Then a 2 mile cooldown, to make about 6 miles. After many months of breaking from speedwork, I'm easing ever so slowly back into it again, including running hard by effort for the next several weeks. I was trying to simulate 2x800m w/400 easy recovery, just going by effort. Again, it felt good to workout with purpose other than just building base.
I'm going to try to do my "long run," which will only be 12 miles again, tomorrow instead of this weekend, as I think a ski trip is brewing. That is, if there's still enough snow after all this melting.
Posted by Meghan at March 2, 2006 7:45 PM