Summer

We are fully in the midst of summer here and it is welcome 8). This picture from our garden.

Not any posting since I've been on a trip for the last 2.5 weeks which was mostly to visit friends and relatives but had a conference.

During this trip I did zero running. Nada. Bumpkis. Nix. Zilch.

I did do a lot of walking and moving around compared to office life, and this was plenty tiring (as travel often is). I feel that after the very hard training cycle a bit of time off is a good thing ...lot just sitting around time off but some walking is good. 

The new blog banner picture is from some dunes on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Walking in sand is pretty good exercise 8)

Coming up next week is my first marathon "Double": SF and then Tracy's fat ass. I probably should be more worried about my lack of training but I'm not really. I plan to run SF very very slowly and then see what happens the next day.

The actual pace I set at SF will depend on the temps. Today at home (when I photographed the dragonfly) it was 70F and very hot in the sun. If the wx is like that on race day (rare) I will be slowing way down to 5:30 pace run/walking for sure, maybe slower. My general feeling is I can't really take it too easy on the first race....I would rather have more oomph for the second race and not have it be a slow walk for too much of it.

I find running very VERY slowly is not that efficient so I intend to run/walk. Rather than a fixed run/walk time cycle, a la Galloway, I will probably run at a 10:30 pace or so and then stop and walk every mile until my average pace drops back to 11:00. I will walk all uphills and then do gentle downhill loping.

Who knows what will happen? It's terra incognita...should be fun. 

 I will have lots of time to take pics so it should be two very interesting days. If things turn out really well, I will be inspired to perhaps try a (flattish) 50 miler ultra such as the popular American River 50.

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In other news, my nephew Oscar (the one that said I couldn't possibly finish Pike's Peak marathon before the cutoff if you remember that posting) is now all grown up and graduated from high school and a freshman at Dartmouth College.  

This kid is uber fit: he's a junior olympics level nordic skier. In fact he picked is school because they have a good nordic team and lots of snow in winter 8)

A few weeks ago he emailed me for some advice: he was training to run the Vermont City Marathon. I gave him a bit of feedback (mostly he needed another 20 milers). 

Amazing: his first marathon he ran a 3:01!! (he's 19 years old so that is BQ!). This is with home grown training. I told him I think he's probably capable of a 2:30 eventually. ..he's got a LOT of years to improve.