i went on vacation for a lot of august. it was pretty rad, and i did a lot of things running around the american north-east with people i like.
and since it's pretty hard to exercise in many other ways when traveling, some of it was indeed literal running. ... for example, i really wish i had photo evidence of me running to, around and from Baltimore's inner harbour during a rainstorm that accumulated the second-most rain in a single day in the city's recorded history (the first being during a hurricane.) my shoes took two days to dry. ... it was pretty exhilarating, actually, although the rain almost knocked out one of contacts. no, really.
i also ran the full 6-miler loop around Central Park with an academic colleague, who nonchalantly runs 3:20 marathons, and i had a slightly wicked hangover, and i didn't die, so that was a pretty big accomplishment. i finally ran past those things i read about on running blogs every other day -- Cat Hill! Harlem Hill! the Reservoir! -- and we ranted about work the whole way, so it also counts as lung training.
anyway, now it's almost fall, and where am i at? still running. my post-vacation reboot has involved a strict run-every-second-day policy, and i've been hitting that consistently. i'm in this mindset where i can't quite make myself run more than an hour, but sometimes they are slow and sometimes fast, so that's not the worst. i'm signed up for a flat road half in massachusetts with friends in ... seven-ish week, so i have to run some 8-12 milers in the next four weeks, but other than that i should be cool.
speaking of cool: since i'm in michigan in late August, there has also been some non-trivial humidity to run in; the worst part of which being all the tiny bugs that get stuck on my sweat-drenched skin when i come in after dusk. (sorry, i hadn't realized just how disgusting that is until typing it here.) ... oh, and i ran into another bat, and i frequently almost run into deer and marmot and there was this toad the other day... yeah, it's wild.
the last thing to say is... oof, about those bold marathon plans? mm. my other half got kind of irate about this plan, and reminded me that after my 26.2 in detroit i "made him promise me to not let run another". ... honestly, i don't remember saying anything of the sort. but i guess it's possible the endorphins let me forget. ... and maybe he and former-me are right. maybe i don't need that pressure again, not now anyway. (his argument is against the physical toil, but let's not get into that now.)
... so! 7 weeks to prep well for a great half. probably some wednesday night city trail races next month. and then we'll see what develops. for a lot of professional and personal reasons, i suspect it's going to be a fairly insane year, and i also suspect running is going to be my lifeline to surviving it sanely, so step one is laying a solid training base, and i think i'm on the way.
