Stromlo Forest Park

Today:
Distance: 38.5 km
Time: 3 hrs 54 mins 28 secs
Rate: 6' 05" per km
Altitude gain: 500 metres
Calories used: 2888
Weather: mostly cloudy, temp 5-13 degrees, humidity 60%, wind calm
Week: 111.8 km, June: 261.85 km, Year: 2117.9 km

Stromlo Forest Park is not really a good place for distance running. The Deeks Forest car park was full of rally cars, construction machines and workmen were preparing an area for a mountain bike event soon, and there is a big hill to the west with a observatory on the top. That doesn't leave much room for a long flat run.
The original plan, as I discussed with softshoeshuffle on the way out, was to run a circuit from Deeks car park, reasonably level on a good gravel surface, return to the car to eat and drink and go again.
The rally cars soon put that idea away, so we had to find somewhere else with SFP the obvious place. Running 20 laps of the grass cross country course would have been too much, even for me. We did include it several times as we found new places to go.
In the end, we ran the grass course a couple of times, out to the bush fire memorial a couple of times, up to near the top of Mt Stromlo once, another lap on what I recall would have been the vet's Mullins course, half way up the mountain, carefull to avoid the mountain bikes. Luckily there weren't many about.
Even with three hilly sections, the average pace was Ok, somewhere near what I wanted to maintain.
First long run since Glasshouse, felt good most of the time, struggled a bit on a few hills, bit sore in the hammies and glutes. That will sort itself out with another couple of long runs when unused muscles are bought back to life. Otherwise, quite happy with the day's effort.