I was going to post this long rant about my sister in law, the nun, who has decided not to come to take care of her mom, even though it seems her convent would allow that, but arranged for help of some stranger instead. I was going to write about the argument talk I had with her during my run. But then I thought that the image of me running and arguing with someone who is not there would made me look a bit weird so I changed my mind. I learned one thing though: if you are going for a run and if you are upset with someone, do not ever forget your headphones.
When I left for this run it was raining cats and dogs. I was hoping I would prove to myself that no silly downpour could ever stop me but as soon as I parked the car, the rain stopped. So at least I had big puddles of water to run through (FUN) and some mud on the dirt side of the asphalt trail.
There is a nice 5mile loop I used to run a lot last year, from the parking lot, along the trail, around the pond and back. I like having mile markers in my head. I know that just before a tiny hill I passed one mile, when I get to the underpass, it is two miles, my half way point is at the tip of the pond and then back. On this trail I would not need my Garmin at all except that I am trying to learn to pace myself and run slow (that means going slower than I already do) for as long as I am in a base building mode. I set my lap counter at a quarter mile intervals and that helps me. I catch myself speeding up to 7:30 and I know I cannot possibly sustain that pace. So I am slowing down to around 10 and the cycle repeats again. This has been my problem all these years, I keep trying and I still cannot control my pace. Maybe in my log I should classify this as intervals.
BTW, do you keep logs? I am a log junkie. Until I switched to Mac a couple of months ago, I used to use Sportstrack and loved it. Unfortunately even with all kinds of plugins it does not want to work on my laptop. But I love my Mac and would never want to go back to a PC.
Wait, I was talking about logs. The good thing about Sportstrack was that your data stayed on my computer. So I was looking for something to replace it with. I toyed with Acsent and rubitrack. They didn't work for me very well.
I log my runs and some workouts on Dailymile but mainly for community support. I wish I could categorize my runs there.
Now my most favorite online running/exercise lot is RunningAhead. Eric who runs the site is an amazingly supportive runner/computer geek, has a very loyal following of pretty cool and always willing to help and advise people.
I was thinking of putting my miles on the Runners World calendar hanging next to my desk but most of the time I forget to do it and I have enough logs already, wouldn't you think?
In the evening I squeezed in a 1.2mi barefoot run in my neighborhood. Felt good.
