almost six miles

I just finished almost six miles. I took the flat 5-mile route and tacked on a little bit more so I could run out to the end of the Veterans Memorial pier at Owls Head. The run was probably 5.5 or 5.75 miles, somewhere in there.

Medium difficulty, mostly due to lungs. Just could not keep going at pace; had several short walk breaks, though not nearly as bad as when I was running in the very cold weather of a few weeks ago. I coughed up a lot of junk today, and thankfully no blood. Legs felt pretty good, all around, with only twinges in the left knee. (I'm icing right now as a matter of course.) Took HEED with me and I think that helped me through the last three miles, which were actually steadier and better than the first three. No surprise there.

Part of the standard 5-mile out-and-back takes me on a paved path along the expressway, where I pass a skate park and a dog run. Part of this path is almost always wet and often underwater. Today, it looked like about 30 feet of small lake and I nearly turned back. On closer inspection, it turned out that, due to its location in perma-shade, only the top 1/16 of an inch was water - the rest was ice. I walked right across it and felt a little like Jeebus.

The neat thing about this run was getting to go somewhere I haven't been before. Going out to Owls Head and the end of the pier was neat. (I usually turn left there and continue on to the Verazzano Bridge.) Anyway, there's a big trumpet-like bronze sculpture in the middle of the pier, which turns out to be the Brooklyn 9-11 memorial. There's also a flagpole at the end of the pier with American and POW flags on it. The view is incredible! On the left hand, the impressive Verazzano Bridge two miles distant; in front, a pretty good view of Staten Island; and to the right a very nice view of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and downtown Manhattan.