Botanical garden training.

So its a Thursday evening in penang. I have not been able to do morning training all week, as Brenna is on school holiday, so I have had to wait for Roxanne to get home in the evening and then go. Its so much hotter and the breeze that makes the morning run so nice is gone. When I saw that the running group was doing a training at the botanical garden in the evening I figured I would join in. From home to the gardens is about 2 miles and since my required run was only 3 miles I figured that would be good, get in a bit of extra mileage and have a good training....you know one of these times I am going to be right, this time I was wrong, again. The training was TOUGH, as the gardens are hilly and the group ran a good majority of the run in the grassy areas. I am not quite ready for hills and the uneven surface of a grass track was not going well with hip felexors that are still in recovery/strengthening mode. the two mile run to get there was not helping either. I was good for maybe the first mile, mile and a half and then the cramping started. I was able to stretch it out a few times, but by the time the group finished what was probably 4 miles...I was done. My 3 mile requirement turned into 6 miles of very difficult and challenging work. The group was very supportive, which is appreciated and I would have liked to have had a better showing, but recovery is recovery and sometime I have to accept what my body is willing to give me. I have determined that I need to static stretch more than I am. I need to begin to lengthen some of these muscles that knot up when overly worked. Penang has its share of great runners, hopefully before I leave I can be included in that description. For now though I am happy to be running in Penang, great, good, bad, it does not matter...Thanks to Mei See Chin for the push to keep going, Ah Seng (I think) for pushing me at the end, Tan Cheng Jin for the pacing at the start, and of course Mei ling for the photos. Everyone else was great also, and a special thanks to Phua Chin Eng for the ride home. there was no way I was going to be able to do another 2 miles home, just sayin! So on the running scale of places to go the botanical gardens gets a 9, its beautiful, I saw parts of it this time out that I had not seen before, its challenging, lots of inclines.I would give it a 10 if not for the monkeys...finding yourself in the center of a macaque turf war is no fun. Run Happy!