Running flat but looking cool and modern

A new outlook

Today's run (street): 3.5 miles

This week has been a commuting nightmare. It took me two hours to get home from work on Wednesday and Thursday nights. My morning drives into the office were barely shorter than that. Happily, I work from home on Fridays. Having no morning commute provides a lot more time to work in a run. I did a short treadmill workout on Tuesday, but Friday, Saturday and Sunday have become my main days for running.

I've had a lot on my mind in terms of business planning for 2015 and I looked forward to getting out for a few miles today to focus on various ideas and scenarios. When I got out on the road, I felt flat, both physically and mentally. I couldn't concentrate on my business topics, so I focused on the run. It was a decent effort, but it still felt flat. I was hoping that I'd be rewarded with an endorphin rush at the end, but no such luck.

I ended up having an interesting day - lots of calls kept me busy and I took a break in the early afternoon to pick up my new glasses. My teenage daughter pronounced them cool and modern (translation: she's no longer embarrassed to be seen with me). That made me happy.

Unfortunately, this weekend's weather is supposed to be very wet. Tomorrow morning's planned group run is being postponed until next week. I'm really looking forward to that as it's been far too long since we've gotten together. I may end up doing some longish runs on the treadmill this weekend, a possibility that does not excite me. But at least I'll look cool and modern while I'm doing my workout.

Running on a "Beach Day"

The world through my glasses at the end of my run

Today's run (street): 4.5 miles

If yesterday's weather was perfect for running, today's was perfectly-awful. My Garmin, which somehow seems to know these things, reported 97% humidity during this morning's run. Today's planned speed workout had to be deferred in favor of a "git it done" neighborhood grind.

When I stepped outside at 8:00 AM, I detected some slight rainfall - drizzle really - that I expected to stop. I expected this because my favorite News 12 weather woman said it would clear up and become a final day of summer beach day. I tend to believe her because she's a runner and therefore wouldn't mislead other runners. Well, it rained.

I dealt with the ever steadier rain for the first mile that looped close enough to my house that I could have just gone home and finished my run on the treadmill. By then, the rain's intensity had dissipated and the sun was poking through. Soon there was no rain, but the enveloping humidity continued the unpleasantness.

One the reasons I don't like running in rain is that it collects on my lenses and obscures my vision. Humidity has its own way of doing that by fogging the lenses from the inside, rendering the world like a Gerhard Richter painting. When I tried to clear my lenses with the bottom of my sweat drenched running shirt, it just made it worse.

As I ran, I thought about stopping and resuming later when the "beach day" weather arrived. I decided to tough it out, which was a good idea because the skies never cleared and the humidity never dropped. I had hoped that today would be the kickoff to a more focused approach to performance running.

I really want to run - and race - with my buddies (see SIOR's Cow Harbor recap and the Petite Pacer's latest post). Before I can join them at the starting line, I'll need to find another minute per mile in my race pace.

Running after a big green dot

Heads up

Today's run (street): 3.5 miles

Glasses are annoying, especially when running in the rain. I've worn glasses most of my life, although I switched to contact lenses between the 1980's and early '90's. Sometimes I wish I still wore contacts. Besides the rain thing, it's a lot easier to find sunglasses. Best of all, contacts don't fall apart in the middle of a meeting like my glasses did last week.

Being 40 miles and six highways away from home when your glasses disintegrate can be a problem. I always keep an old pair in my bag but I've discovered that the prescription is different enough to provoke a headache. At least I could see well enough to drive home.

My schedule has been so tight that I haven't been able to get a replacement pair. I worked from home today so I could get out and see my optometrist. I went through the exercise of choosing new frames today, but for the time being, I'm stuck with my old pair.

I took advantage of my non-commuting day by going for an early run. I needed to get out before the rain started and I timed it perfectly. The cold air felt great and I had no trouble getting to a brisk pace. The sky was full of threatening clouds, but there was still an opening for the sun that acted like a laser beam at certain angles. When that happened, my clip-on sunglasses reflected off my glasses' lenses and created the illusion of a big green dot hovering at eye level, just out of reach.

I was amused and distracted by this optical curiosity that looked like a heads up display or some application you'd run on Google Glass. As the clouds grew and spread, my dot eventually disappeared and the sky grew darker. I spent 3/4 of the run on the sidewalk because the early middle school drop-off cars were aggressively making their way through the neighborhood.

When I reached home, I noticed the first drops of rain. That quickly increased to a downpour, but not before I was safely inside my house. I was glad to get a weekday run in today, especially when the weather was cooperating so nicely. I've adjusted to my old prescription at this point so I'm going to need to go through another transition in a week. Until then, I'll focus on catching the dot.