Today was President's Day, one of 10 Federal holidays that I get paid not to work.  The banks, libraries, post office and stock market were also closed, though I know many people that worked anyway, including my real estate agent, the guys across the street putting a new roof in, the FedEx guy, the workers who made our sandwich at Subway and my boss (no, he doesn't work at Subway).

Perhaps coincidentally (to the fact that a new roof is going up across the street), I discovered a roofing nail in my car tire yesterday. The tire remained inflated overnight so I decided to drive the car to a local tire shop where I found more guys who had to work on this fine holiday. Twenty minutes and $20 later I was off to the gym for my standard 20 minute workout.

At this point I was about an hour into my "quick" errand to fix the flat tire but I wanted to slip a quick run in while I could without my wife knowing (shhh....don't tell her...she doesn't read this blog as she hates the fact that I run).  But I figured I could get away with a 40 minute run and quickly slip in for a shower before she shes me.

So I took off on my run, with no plan in mind. These are usually my best runs, the ones where I have no idea where I'm going. So I head south from my gym and decide to figure it out as I go. About 10 minutes into the run, it dawned on me that it had been probably 10 years since I ran up a particular hill in Newbury Park.  This was the perfect opportunity to do so.

In Google Maps this area is called the Potrero Open Space, accessible at the crest of Wendy Drive (there is parking available). I accessed the trails from Reino Road and found a trail that took me to the top of the hill and back down towards Wendy Drive. There were some challenging, rocky hills that I had to walk up but once I made it to the top of the hill, I was rewarded with panoramic views of Newbury Park.  Instant gratification!

I do plan to do this trail again very soon, now that I'm reminded how cool the view is at the top! But next time I'll have to bring the video cam!

All told, I ran about 46 minutes, got a nice hill/trail workout in and was able to slip in to the shower without my wife noticing the sweat and dust on my legs.  I rewarded myself (and my wife) by taking the kids out the rest of the day.

On a side note, still no races on the calendar for me, but I'm doing about 35 miles per week. Just enjoying running for the sake of running at the moment!