Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

I had a 20 minute walk last night and another 35 minutes this morning.  The difference between those two walks represents how fast I feel this recovery is going.  Last night I had to put my hand on Mr. Sno's shoulder to step off the curbs, and this morning it was no problem.  Stairs yesterday: forwards but still pretty wonky and have to hold on to the rail; stairs today: smooth and "no hands Ma" though a bit weak.   I might be able to jog a little tomorrow!  :D  

After my walk I did about 25 minutes of upper body weights, abs, and stretching while watching the Daniels/McMillan training dvd.  Has anyone else seen that? It's pretty interesting.  

Low 50s, clear and sunny.  

Running again!  Slow, but very pleasant.  It looks like we're in for a week or more of relentless sunshine.  But forecasts can be wrong; I'll keep my fingers crossed. ;)

Easy run w/ Mt. Si Running Club.  Clear & sunny, high 50s F rising into 60s.  

I ran about a mile on my own to warm up before the club met.  Everything feels great, though not a lot of zing! in the legs.  I felt like I could have kept going quite a lot farther, so recovery is coming right along.  It's the leave-em-wanting-more method of marathon recovery.  Tomorrow is a scheduled day off, and on Monday I get to start running more!  :D

Feeling restless...  I got up this morning and wrote a poem. It's dreadful, so don't even ask me to share it.  But I will give you the nutshell version: I didn't run today.  I wish very much that I was back up to my usual miles.  I am at the beginning of a new training period with all this possibility laying before me.  Now is the time to make good choices.

The best thing to do at a time like this is immerse oneself in one's training books, planner in hand.  I may be having some coaching with Sean after all (haven't heard from him), in which case things will be somewhat simpler.  But for now I'm reviewing principles and picking workouts. 

When I got to my Daniels Formula book, I realized I had not yet plugged my new 5K PR (2 weeks ago) into his tables.  O-ho! A new VDOT number!  39.  That's up from 37!  But then I went to the pace table and the paces for VDOT 39 seem way high.  I guess that's just sticker shock; Mr. Daniels knows quite a lot more about these things than I.   (E = 10:23, M = 8:57, T = 8:22,  I = 1:54 for 400m, R = :53 for 200m)  But perhaps those are targets rather than current training paces.  I'll have to reread...

And as long as we are talking about Stuff Sno Doesn't Understand...  I would love someone to explain Peaking.  (Have I whined about this before?)  I've read all about it and I know what is meant by the term, but I cannot wrap my brain around it in a practical sense.  Let's say I lose all my senses and take a job as a refuse collection person (don't know the current PC term).  At first, my muscles will be very sore lifting the garbage cans into the truck.  After a while they will get stronger. Eventually, it will be no problem, lift, lift, lift.  There is no "peak," after which I will be come a less able lifter.   Why should running muscles behave any differently?  Maybe someone can straighten me out. 

Enough rambling... tomorrow I run!

Easy run, bringing mileage back up this week.  58F and cloudy. :)

ETA: 20 min. weights & stretches

The weather seemed to be welcoming me back today. Not that 58F is so very cool, but the cloud cover was heavenly.  (No pun intended, lol.)  The cool grey light makes all the colors of foliage stand out, and the temperature feels like what it is  without the sun warming up everything that isn't shaded.

New week, new training cycle, perhaps even new paces?  I glanced at my Garmin every now and then on relatively flat bits of terrain today to see whether I am fitting in with the Daniels "easy" pace I mentioned yesterday, 10:23.  I was a bit erratic actually. But mostly slower than 10:23, even after my warm up.  Nevertheless, a couple of times I was closer to 9:50.  I'm not going to worry about it, but I do find it interesting that my pace fluctuated so much. 

I signed up for RW's daily quotations, and received my first one today. It's pretty good, so I'm going to put it in my profile after I save this entry:  "As every runner knows, running is about more than just putting one foot in front of the other; it is about our lifestyle and who we are."  --Joan Benoit Samuelson

55F & cloudy.  :D   Objective: general aerobic and running form.  Trying to keep "easy" pace at 10:20-10:30. 

It was a great run, with the very interesting addition of seeing what that Daniels 10:23 pace feels like when done consistently.  With the exception of the warm up, cool down and a few very hilly places, I was right on target.  I cannot say it felt truly easy, but it was certainly doable and lots of fun.  (I'm pleased to see how great my legs feel this week.)  It made me start to wonder if I'm being lazy with my easy runs.  So now I'm contemplating using this pace for most of my non-speed workouts, but throwing in a really slow run every week and calling that "recovery pace."  

General reading...  Dean Karnzes in Forbes magazine.  (I think the title of the article should be Paradigm Shift instead of Hitting the Wall.)  Also, I'm enjoying the book Born To Run, about the Tarahumara tribe, distance running, and what humans are really capable of.  For your reading pleasure and background, I dug this paper on the Tarahumara.

ETA: Almost forgot to mention...  My run was cut short by a rather frustrating 5 minutes being locked inside one of the park bathrooms. That lock has been fussy for months and today it froze.  The 911 operator was just connecting me to local authorities when I finally freed myself.  I'll be calling the Parks Dept this morning.   Between that and having to be home by 6:15 today -- and for the next 3 weeks -- I'm short of today's goal of 9 miles.  Mr. Sno has to leave the house early during a road construction project, so I might even have to finish some of my runs... (cue horror movie music) on the treadmill!  Eeeek!

Taking a scheduled day off.  Not crazy about missing the run, but the sleep was wonderful! After tapering and then recovering, my brain had forgotten how to wake up at 4:30. Even though Monday and Tuesday were not super high mileage days, I still had to get up before 4:30 to accommodate Mr. Sno's temporary early commute.  By last night I was really feeling it and was happy to hit the pillow.   

More cloudy weather today - I love it!  

Cloudy, 57F.  Moderate run (9:45-10:20).

15 min. weights

I had to finish this run on the dreadmill.  So now I'm thinking, how bad would it be to get up at 4:00 instead of 4:15, just two days per week?  And the road construction in Mr. Sno's commute won't last that long. Just a few weeks.  Even 15 minutes on the dreadmill is too much if there is another way...

My camel may have found its last straw.  We added one more activity to the Amazing Young Miss Sno's life this week.  There may be periods of time when I seem kind of quiet on the Comments.  I may have to do more lurking and less typing on my busiest mornings.

Food for thought:  "The optimal level of aerobic support for the marathon is also half-marathon pace. Because the endurance challenge of the marathon is so severe, your goal marthon pace has to be a virtual cakewalk, aerobically..." -Brad Hudson, Run Faster.

Lastly, here is an interesting video showing the difference in footstrike, for at least one runner, between barefoot and shoed running.

55F, clear.  Slow, easy & short.

Pretty morning.  I saw a buck with huge antlers -- kind of unusual.  Have a great weekend everyone!   

Warm morning: 60F rising to 66F, sunny (w/ waning gibbous in blue skies).  Objective: club run with descending/ascending Parkway (Spirit Crusher Hill) before and after meet up w/ club. 

The Cat Who Must Be Obeyed had A Need just as I was leaving and I was already a couple of minutes late to get to the club meeting place. Now a good 5 minutes late, after a mile of gentle warm up I decided to crank up the pace. I was descending the Parkway at that point, which is a 1.7 mile long hill. From the bottom of the hill into old Snoqualmie I tried to keep the pace up, wanting to reduce the lateness of my arrival. From my house to the high school is 3.8 miles, a bit farther than I thought - "run even faster!"

I scarcely had time to catch my breath and say hello when the 10:00 pace group was ready to go.  We didn't spend any time at all getting into a 9:40 pace and stayed there pretty much the whole run, out the Snoqualmie Valley Trail to the North Bend library and back.  We picked up another woman on the way back who seemed interested in joining the club. That was fun.  :)

At about 9.5 miles I was back on my own, and running towards home.  When I hit the Parkway (S.C. Hill) I dropped down to about an 11:00 minute mile, which gradually slowed to nearly 13:00.  The last half mile of the hill is incredibly steep and the sun was beating down.  My usual heat nausea began to arise, but wasn't too bad.

About 5 minutes into the hill climb, a pedestrian stopped me. She was an elderly Chinese woman who wanted very much to ask me something, the only English word of which was "Seattle," and then she was making binocular gestures with her hands on her eyes. Uh oh. You are a long way from Seattle, ma'am.  I tried to help. Dangit, how do you say "very far" in Chinese? She seemed to want me to point the direction, so I did, repeating the word "bus," while she nodded vigorously.  Hope she made it.

I am thrilled with this run!   I pushed my pace for a long time, and then ran up a killer hill -- all just 2 weeks after a marathon!  From mile 2 through mile 9, all miles were within 30 seconds of marathon pace (they ranged 9:26-9:50) except for mile 9, which included my running group's cool down -- and even that mile was only 10:03. The "easy miles" category on my blog record seems ill fitting today!

We interrupt this blog for a philosophical reflection:   I find that, depending on the day, I either hate or love the Bobby McFerrin song, Don't Worry Be Happy.  The frowny, "realistic" Sno finds it highly irresponsible to have such a gleeful attitude regardless of circumstances.  On the other hand, in Bobby's own words: "in this life you have some trouble - when you worry you make it double..."  I thought about that at the bottom of the hill today. :)

Now I have to rest and rehydrate to be sharp for a wedding gig this afternoon.  Sun is here on the one day I really actually need it. (Outdoor wedding.) Tomorrow the clouds return. Life is good!

60F & rainy, w/ increasing thunder.  Recovery run. 

Just a wee run to loosen up the legs.  I wore some "pretty" shoes yesterday for several hours, something I rarely do these days, and have 2 blisters, one on each foot, to show for it.  It's funny, because I did not feel any pain until the shoes came off. Both blisters are on the balls of the feet, deep under the skin.  Lesson learned. 

So between the feet complaining and the thunder, and the wanting just a short run anyway, I barely got warmed up before coming in.  Lightening is one of my big run stoppers, especially since a bolt came down so close to me last summer.  It's probably the only weather that will really stop me from running.  We don't get a lot of it, thank goodness. 

57F, rainy & very windy (~20 mph in open spaces).  Easy run. 

As I've mentioned before, I typically get a 2 day DOMS. This morning my legs were very sore from Saturday.  Still, I had a great run, though slow.  I'm loving this weather so much. 

I am somewhat disappointed in myself about not getting out the door earlier.  Mr. Sno has an early commute due to some contruction traffic for the next few weeks, so I need to be back home on parent duty by 6:20 now.  I could have finished up a couple more miles on the TM, but I couldn't face it.  No way to start my week, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  I'll just have to try harder tomorrow.  When I go back to my old routine it will feel positively luxurious. 

57F Cloudy. Easy run.

I got out of the house early enough to require a headlamp, the first time in many weeks that I've used one.  It still wasn't quite early enough for my goal miles (see Monday's explanation) and I tried to run a little longer on the Dreadmill. 

I don't know what is wrong with me, that I can enjoy myself so much out on the streets - for hours at a time if need be - and then feel like I completely hate running within one minute on the TM.  I endured about half a mile of it, and pressed stop. 

It's really odd, because I had a great movie (once I was just stretching and doing abs I was completely engrossed), the basement where we keep the TM is nice and cool, and I only meant to go a couple of miles on it. "Just 20  minutes. I can do that!"  Seems like it should be pretty easy.  But I hate it.  Like, "I never want to run again - running is stupid - why would anyone do this" kind of hatred. 

Well, I'm done trying to force that on myself.  One should never say never, but for the time being I will either run early enough or run less. I declare my Independence!

On a completely different topic,  I have long wondered: who are the people in the fastrunningblog home page picture?  If anyone knows, I'd love to hear. 

55F & clear, valley below is full of fog, lucky them...  Easy run. 

The difference between running with a dog and running with a cat is that the dog will trot along by your side and the cat will feel the need to remind you of his presence by attempting to twine through your legs every now and then.   The Cat Who Must Be Obeyed popped out of the bushes in front of me about 2 blocks from home and had to be returned lest he follow me just long enough to give up and be lost.  I believe I blogged about this the last time it happened. It is hilarious to see I'm sure, because he jogs along at my side, except for the leg twining thing. 

58F Clear & humid.  20 min strength wk after.

Finally, I got some decent miles in. Whether or not I can stay awake past 5 PM today is yet to be seen. 

Busy morning...  Cheers.

~60F, with pockets of warmer and cooler air about. Clear skies, another hot day coming. Easy pace (~10:30) w/ last mile before c.d. at marathon pace (9:00-9:15). 

I made it to about 8:20 PM last night, and left the dishes, the family, every chore I meant to finish... left it all behind and went to bed. We still have the sun up quite late these days, so I put on the eye mask - love that thing. Fortunately the weekend is coming, and next week's schedule won't have me up quite as early.

I am now officially coming to the end of the 3 week recovery period from the marathon, though I haven't been taking that too seriously.  Just avoiding any intense speedwork and avoiding running too long.  I'm looking forward to running a little more and a little harder now. But I'm going to have to figure out how to get some more sleep.  Others seem to be able to get by OK on so little, but I just do the stupidest things and get so irritable.   I'll have to think this through. There is always a way, when one is determined...

Started at ~58F, rising to mid 60s, mostly sunny.  A bit too warm in the sun, but a nice breeze near home for the last few miles.  Objective: endurance + club run + Spirit Crusher Hill + strong finish. I would love to say it was a "fast finish," but by that point the effort-to-results ratio was all messed up. 

Fabulous run. Fun, friends, great beauty, and lots of sweat.   I left the house about 5:45AM and just had a leisurely warm up around the neighborhood before heading down the hill to meet with the club. 

If I haven't mentioned it before, I live in some hills above a fairly flat valley. The "old Snoqualmie" is down in the valley and that is where the club meets and runs.  The road down into town is a 2 mile long hill, the steepest part of which occurs near the top, the "Spirit Crusher." That part of the hill is .8 mile of crazy-steep asphalt.

As I headed down the hill, there were a few wispy high clouds, but then I saw what looked like fog in the valley below! Oh joy --but alas, it was not fog. In fact, it turned out to be a bit of low cloud that soon dissipated. 

After descending into town, I met up with the club and ran about 6 miles with a new person who said she wanted to run a pace in the 9:00's but then changed her mind to run with me in the 10:00's.  She is healing from an injury and thought maybe a slower pace would be good. 

I enjoyed chatting with her very much, but I did have to remind her to slow down many times, because I was not interested in running at MP today!   "Are you SURE you want to run with me?"  Oh yes, she was sure...  But it turned out to be a win-win situation because she hasn't been running that far lately and me holding her back became a real blessing as she got very tired in the last mile or two. And I got to spend time with a very nice person.

I am starting to think that one of the best things about being in a running club is just having more people in your life who will not roll their eyes or yawn when you go on and on about running.  And then they go on and on, and you can compare notes, and it's all quite satisfying.

I decided to come back up the hill immediately after the club run, before it got too hot, and finish my miles on my usual turf. That was a good decision I think.  The Spirit Crusher was brutal, as always. I will stop calling it that when it stops being scary-hard. But other than a pit stop at the Fischer Park bathroom, I ran the whole hill! After that, my legs were quite weak and I dropped into the 11:00s for pace.

After doing some loops through the business park, the pea patch (wow it looked good!), and some other neighborhoods,  I decided to try and push myself a little the last 1.5 miles.  I increased my cadence and tried to turn up the power, but I only managed to come back to about a 10:00 pace.  I guess it's good practice though, and I tried to imagine the last part of a marathon and finishing strong.

Observations on what makes long runs more successful:
1) 8+ hours of sleep
2) sticking to a plan
3) noticing how beautiful the world is
4) not having somewhere you have to be afterwards, feeling rushed
5) controlling your thoughts and thinking positively, ie "this is not hard / lots of people run much farther, much faster/ this is actually quite easy."  Keep saying it, even when you don't believe it! Why? Because it will keep out the opposite thinking, which may be equally untrue! I.e. "I can't do it/ I'll never make it." 

61F, sunny w/ breeze.  Recovery run, short & sweet. :)

This business of getting old is quite interesting when you don't take it too personally.  I got out of bed this morning feeling like I'd been run over by the proverbial bus, but when I got outside an hour later, I felt great.  I went from literally hobbling to a pleasant jog. I ask myself, what does this mean? Possible answer, you aren't getting any younger, but you are getting stronger.

I'm taking a scheduled day off tomorrow.  I don't know if I can handle three nights in a row of getting a good night's sleep, but I'm willing to try.  ;)  Cheers.

No running. Travel day!

Half hour of pool running at the Sleeping Lady Resort...  more later. :)

Full report in a few days when I can post pictures...

Coming home today; will post pictures, stories, etc. 

 Now that I'm home, telling stories and writing long descriptions isn't so appealing... so tired.  Well, I will get it started; maybe more later in the week.

The Sleeping Lady resort (named after a silhouette formed by the mountains) is an amazing place.  We first discovered it many years ago by going there for a concert in the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival series.  The lodging is what I call "eco-luxury cabins."   The meals are included, served buffet style in a large pine-decor dining hall.  The food is amazing, and definitely one of the best reasons to go there.  Their chef is world class and many of the ingredients come from their own organic garden.  The abundance is overwhelming. For example, dinner one night was curried pumpkin soup, french lentils, roasted carrots, salmon, roast (either or both), pizza, fresh baked bread, salads, cheeses, mounds of fresh berries and other local fruit, 3 kinds of dessert...  And you just take what you'd like, self serve except for the hot dishes.  It is all finer than the best restaurants I've ever been to.   Going on and on about the food -- you see, I need to go cook dinner...

We swam, walked, rode horses, went to an amazing concert by Mark O'Connor, and I had two nice runs in the surrounding rural area.  Pretty good for just two days away.  We spent zero time in the little tourist town of Leavenworth (Bavarian by law), but I mention it in case anyone is thinking of visiting this place because it's great if you like to shop.

Just a few pictures for now.  (Hope the pix come through ok - using photobucket for the first time.) Some of the grounds, the organic garden, the rock pool, Dale Chihuly Icicle sculpture...

58F w/ low clouds. Easy/moderate run.

What a change this weather is from my runs in Leavenworth.  (more about that below). A pleasant moderate paced run (~9:50) in the refreshing moist, cool air.

I had two runs on vacation, both begun before sunup to avoid the heat and to get back on time for the incredible breakfast.  Tuesday's was a fantastic 9.5 miles on highways and back roads around the town, much of it following the marathon route. (I ran that one a few years ago and it was pleasant to see the area again.)

The air over there is quite dry compared to here.  I don't consider Puget Sound to be excessively humid, especially compared to other parts of the country I have visited, but Eastern  Washington is really like a desert in its air quality. Very dry.  It made the heat later in the day a lot more tolerable (~95F in the shade).  The temperature while I was running was in the low to mid 60s. 

I saw tons of wildlife on both of my runs. Only one deer, mostly small creatures: many types of birds (finches, blue jays, a flock of Canada geese, and several whose names I don't know), rabbits, chipmunks, and a mama squirrel who was trying to stuff her baby into a bird house hole. Also saw lots of horses, sheep, 3 goats, cows and a longhorn steer.

On Wednesday, I had my second run, which was quite a bit shorter than I intended. I was going to run the same 9.5 mile loop and add mile repeats at half mar. pace, but I woke up feeling utterly tired.  It was no wonder... Tuesday had been an "easy" run, but I was actually within about 30 seconds of marathon pace for much of the run. Then we all went on a trail ride after breakfast. In the afternoon I spent over an hour swimming and jumping around in the pool with my daughter, and we were up late for our concert.  Sooooo, plan B for Wednesday morning: recovery run.  My whole body seemed to scream "slow please!"  But that was the run when I saw the most wildlife, so it was quite pleasant too. 

Later in the day (hence the sunlight) I took two pictures from the car of some interesting sights from my run. The first is some kind of tower - what can that be? It was even prettier in the pre-dawn light, as if I had stumbled into Scotland or something.  The second is this yard full of gnome statues -- many, many more than are pictured here. If you are going to have gnomes, you might as well go all out. 

The last picture is a little tiny ornamental grass that was in many of the potted plant mixtures by the doors to various buildings in the resort.  Those little white seed tufts were so soft, it was like having a cat in a plant.  Does anyone know the name of this little guy? Weed or ornamental grass, depending on your point of view, but I have forgotten what it's called.

59F & Cloudy. Easy run w/ hill sprints (only time for 4).  20 min. strength work.

I'm just one click above "rest day" here.  My legs were super springy and I had lots of energy this morning for some reason.  ??  "It's a good thing."  No one says that anymore since Martha got sent to jail it seems.  I hope I feel this good tomorrow for my long run. Hope the clouds stick around too.

Just a few more pictures from our trip... 

Mr. Sno and young Miss Sno at the edge of Icicle Creek, behind the dining hall. The creek was recently restored as a salmon spawning habitat. If you visit in September, the salmon are all over the creek, spawning, dying, flopping about in the shallow water, and you can see the eggs too.

And here is a picture of the mountain profile for which "Sleeping Lady Resort" is named, taken from the organic garden.

Warm morning. Started in the 60sF and ended w/ upper 70s.  Humidity in the 70s too. Mostly sunny.  Objective: endurance run + club run + Spirit Crusher Hill. 

I hope this really counts as an endurance workout even though I had two prolonged stops. First was the usual stop for the club meet-up (at 4.3 miles); we always talk a bit before we run.  I had running partners for only a half mile or so. No one in my pace group wanted to go long today (not many showed up today), so I peeled off at the Snoqualmie Valley Trail and ran alone after mile 5.  

My second stop occured because I reached the Mt. Si Rd. and had not run quite far enough to be turning back yet.  So I used my cell phone to call up my buddy who lives up that road and asked her if I could just nip up there and use her facilities and have some water.  I had run exactly 10 miles when I reached her home, and had about a 15 minute break while I visited with her and her family. She has the most adorable little boys, one of whom said he wanted to watch me "take off" when I left.  (He had been drawing rockets all morning.)  I hope I didn't disappoint him too badly.

On the way back down her canyon road, I passed the barn where Young Miss Sno rides horses and said hi to the owners, who were outside.  That was a very brief stop.  They insisted on giving me a bottle of cold water, probably because I was so covered in sweat. The humidity today was really hard for me and I had my usual heat nausea around mile 15. 

All in all, it was a fun & interesting run. There were too many rabbits to count on the SV Trail, and I almost stepped on a little garter snake.  Did you know they eat slugs? They are one of the few animals that will do so. Around here, we really appreciate that, as we have huge slugs here. 

70F, humid & hazy.  MP run.  ~4 easy, 2 @ MP (9:04, 8:47), remainder easy.

We're in for it now. Major heat wave all week. I don't believe the temperature has ever been this high around here so early in the morning (5:15am) since I started running.  

Another first for me - 2 days out from my 20 miler, and no soreness.  None. (I am always most sore 2 days after major exertion.)

My MP miles were separated by a minute of slow jogging. I really didn't want to break them up like that but I was burning up and breathing too hard. The second one was too fast, but it felt the same as the first. As soon as I finished I found some sprinklers to run through. Ah.

I've been taking barefoot walks with Mr. Sno for a couple of weeks to see if I could toughen up my feet. I could never understand why the advice on getting started with barefoot running always focused on foot strength and not on skin issues.  Sure enough, the skin on my feet has responded extremely fast  and is much tougher, whereas the feet themselves still feel like they absolutely collapse with each step.  Today I carried my shoes in my hand the last .3 of a mile, and ran alternately on grass and cement.  I have a long ways to go in building foot strength, which surprised me because I've worn my racing shoes almost exclusively lately.  It's true, our feet just don't have to work in shoes. Maybe that's why humans started making them in the first place; we are so good at labor saving devices. 

72F at 4:50 AM!  Very humid.  Ug.  "Easy" run.  20 min. strength work in nice, cool basement...

 This was like running through soup.  Fortunately, there were plenty of sprinklers going and believe me, I ran through every one of them. 

Why oh why did I sign up for a half marathon on August 1?  The worst of our heat wave will have passed, but it's still forecast to reach the 80s that day.  I might just have to fun-run it, but it was supposed to be a speed workout for me.  I wonder how much acclimatization I can get by the warm air running I will have done this week.  Ah well, there is always the shirt.

People are going to be talking about this for years to come. The headline of the Seattle Times this morning reads, "Hottest Day Ever?"  Like the Seattle earthquake in 2001, and the blackout in December 2007 (my neighborhood was without power for 5 days), this heat will become legend. At least I hope it does, because that would mean it wasn't repeated again and again. 

The thermometer on my porch this morning read 78F at 5:30 AM - speed work canceled.  Weirdly, the wind was blowing, which helped immensely. It is incredible to think that six months ago we had some of the lowest temps ever, and drifts of snow in my yard that were as tall as I am.

Yesterday afternoon there were reports of it being 104F in parts of the Snoq. Valley and someone in North Bend reported 110F -- it sounds impossible but, where we are situated, elevation differences of 500 ft. can produce wildly different temperatures.  Today's forecast: even hotter.

And now I present... The Art of Justification.  My beautiful ("Blooms" design) little Franklin Planner calendar for today says "6-7 mi w/ VO2: 10 x .25 mile."  Hahahahahaha. Excuse me.  Honestly, if the whole summer was like this, I'd bite the bullet and do my speed work. I really would.  Then again, if the whole summer was like this, I'd move to Scotland.  One eensy little part of my brain said I should run a bit faster to "practice" for Saturday's Half-m.  Hahahahahahaha.  If the mercury is over 70 on race day, I'm going to jog, chat, collect my tshirt and come home.

80F at 5:00 AM, w/ pockets of hotter and cooler air throughout neighborhood.  Objective: sprinkler patrol, last .4 barefoot.  20 min. strength work.

I promised myself I wouldn't complain about the weather today, but now I find I have nothing else to talk about. Plus I'm rushed.  Have a great day!

65F, clear w/ haze. Objective: short & sweet.  +Inaugural run in VFFs. 

Marine Layer. Mah-reeeeeeen layer... ahhhhh.

Here is what came in the mail yesterday:

Observations from my short trial run in them:

-It takes me a long time to get them on. Also, there is a weird brain glitch wherein I see the VFF toes and have a hard time believe that my toes are not in the right pockets. Hopefully this will get smoother with time.
-The VFF's spread ones toes apart, exactly the opposite of what women's shoes have been doing to me for 50+ years.  Interesting sensation, not uncomfortable but I do notice it.
-There is a little ridge at the bottom of the ball of the foot (ie the edge of the ball of foot that is closest to the heel), and this ridge is exactly where my foot lands.  It was somewhat bothersome at first and then I forgot about it.  I hope it will not be a problem; I never read anyone else complain of it in the 40 bazillion websites I went to before I bought these.
-The skin protection is AWESOME, but other than that, truly barefoot running is more comfortable. 
- I am REALLY slow in these, even though I don't feel slow.  It will be interesting to see whether increasing foot strength overcomes lack of "energy return" that one gets from the bounce of shoes.

A great beginning. I am looking forward to seeing where this takes me.  I expect to take my time. Evolution, not revolution.