Beautiful Morning

Thursday, July 21, 2011:

After a week of heat index temperatures over 100, today was downright pleasant. In fact, for the first mile or two I actually felt cool. We ran in the park again, this time on the grass trails, which have mostly recovered from last weekend’s cloudburst. The temperature was 75 most of the way, with a reasonable dew point, so I should have been fine, but I did get a little warm in the bright sun and walked now and then, more than I wanted to. No knee pain.

11.2 miles in 2:09:30, for a pace of 11:34, and I worked pretty hard to get that. The grass/dirt trails are always slower than paved trails, of course, but today they were slower yet because the grass was wet and needed mowing.

Nevertheless it was a delightful run in the wild, hardly a soul to be seen along the way. One guy with three dogs, and I ran past my sweeties once. 23 miles this week, hopefully more next week.

Monday, July 18, 2011:

We three went with Jim to the park, 7:00 am, already 80 degrees with a dew point almost that high. No sense waiting for the temperature to go up some more. Jim and I ran 5.8 miles on the paved trails (grass trails still too soggy from 4" of rain) and the girls did their normal loop of 3.6 mi. Engaged in conversation, I forgot to click my watch at the finish, but I think it was about 57 minutes. If so, the pace was just under 10 min/mi. The sun was shining this morning, no rain, but when we finished we were all soaking wet, every bit of clothing.

We walked a few times when I felt my face getting flushed, which I always take as a warning of overheating. But we made a good time, for me anyway, and I enjoyed the run. No knee problems! Huh.

Oatmeal on top this time: