Beautiful day. I picked the challengingly hilly but scenic Line Creek Trail for my run. Out and back I can squeeze 6 miles out of it. This run had the added excitement of multiple swarms of flying bugs to run through, and an irritated Shetland Sheepdog who wanted me out of his territory.
Of the two, the bugs were the worst; they're too dumb to chase away. Mouth, nose, eyes, hair. I finally snorted one into my sinuses and had to blow snot rockets to get it out. Nasty. Glad I wasn't running in the Plaza.
The dog looked real mean until I made an aggressive move toward it, then it turned and ran off. I had to do that twice, though.
Despite all that, though, I had a good run, going 6.1 miles in 56:02, a 9:12 pace. I covered my uphill stretches at an 8:55 pace, far better than other times I've run the course.
Looks like I will be running the Trolley Run in a week and a half. It's 4 miles, mostly flat to downhill, and one of Kansas City's oldest running events. I did really well in it last year (29:36/7:24 and 10th of 161 in my division), but right after that is when everything went downhill physically for the rest of the year. I won't run it so hard this year.