Beautiful Morning

Thursday, July 16:

What a wonderful morning! These are the rare summer days that we treasure. Windows open at night, cool mornings, perfect afternoons. We sure need rain, but if it’s not coming then we might as well enjoy what we do have. Another romp in the park today, same route as yesterday, 8.2 miles, but this time with Jim. I was concerned that I’d be low on energy today, having run just yesterday, but my time was actually five minutes faster than yesterday’s. It pays to run with Jim, for whom this was a nice easy jog in preparation for an upcoming 8k race. Pace was 9:42, quite good for eight miles on grass and dirt. This run finished 28 miles this week, hopefully 30 next week and that will be the limit. Beyond that I seem to slide into some injury of some kind, always different.

We almost ran over a little line of tiny goslings (maybe ducklings) crossing the trail, as they left a lake to hustle into the woods. How cute can you get! No doubt they were following Mom, but we didn’t see her, so she must have reached the privacy of the low plants before we arrived.

No injury today. The left ankle yelled at the start but settled down - sometimes that’s just from being slept on crooked or whatever. The right knee hurt just a very little bit, as it often does, possibly from a floater in the meniscus. My diagnosis. Hips were fine and I tried to balance the slope of the trail half of the time toward each hip. Stretches are key here too, especially in avoiding ITB and bursa problems, and I must admit that I am not as consistent in doing my stretches every day as I should be.



Oatmeal breakfast with a few berries and such.