Summertime

Yesterday I totally bagged on an early morning run with John. It was pouring, I hadn't slept well at all and my allergies were driving me nuts - dry, scratchy throat and itchy eyes. Instead I figured I would just go in to work extra early - one of the perks of having Mom and Dad here for sure! - and then leave around 3:15 to get in a run before heading home in the afternoon. Of course, as 3:00 rolled around, the skies had gotten dark, thunder was rumbling and the heavens opened up with heavy rain. Hmmm. I am not adverse to running in the rain but in thunder/lightening? Well, maybe! I decided I would go do the recycling first and hope the storm had died down by the time I was done.

Indeed, the sky was looking brighter around 3:45 although it was still raining, so I pulled into the Cathance parking lot and ran from there. I believe I described my run on Strava as "Sweaty, squishy, squashy, soaked, slippery, sloppy" to which a friend added "soupy." Indeed all were accurate! I did see a groundhog and a snowshoe hare along the way though - always fun sightings. Got in 4 miles and headed home to enjoy Indian food out with the family for dinner. Yum!

I actually managed to sleep well last night, which is a rarity, really, so I felt ready to get up with the alarm and out early today ;) I decided I wanted to test out the interval timer feature on my watch - I had set it (or so I thought) for 1 minute on, 1 minute off, as I had read about that workout a while back and thought it would be a good way to inject speed without having to watch pace too carefully; it would more be about effort this way. Anyway, I ran out on the powerlines, enjoying the cool air and the low fog lying atop the greenery; I noticed the milkweed is getting ready to flower - oh they smell so good!

A bit farther along, I just had to stop to pick some of the ripening dew-covered blueberries, set on the hillside in the early morning sun. You just don't pass those up ;)

I ran down the road until my watch beeped 1 mile and then started up the interval timer, or so I thought. Apparently I paused it when I thought I had started it, so my first interval was off but whatever ;) I kept up the intervals from miles 2 through start of mile 5 and then backed off to a leisurely run pace on the final mile back home. It was kind of fun to just try to keep up the pace and wait to hear the beep of the watch to slow down. Got in 8x 1 min on/2 min off (guess I messed up how those intervals were supposed to be entered! ;) ) and then messed up again, by pausing my watch at the start of mile 5 instead of ending the intervals. Grrr! Ah, technology and human error. Such fun! But at least now I know how it works ;) I think I will use it for some workouts but also am planning to set it for 30 min/30 min to keep tabs on gel intake during a long run/race. I had liked that alarm feature on my Garmin and was bummed to not find something similar on the Suunto; I think this will work well in place of the Garmin alarm, well, as long as I remember to start it at the beginning of a long run where I'm working on fueling ;)

Also, looking at Strava today, I found that I've run 934.2 miles from the start of January to end of June. A bit off pace for 2,000 miles for the year, but still, not bad!

Speaking of summertime, Mom, Dad and Sam are up at Popham Beach today. What a great day to be outside enjoying the sun and sand!