The Long and Winding Road (mostly long)

[Yesterday I ran 4 miles.  Nothing exciting to report.  Although there is now a 'On Purpose Stephanie Encounter' to go with the 'Random Stephanie Encounter.']

Today was the last long run: 20 miles.  And I finished it.  It was not the most pleasant run I have ever done: it started in the 60s with 85% humidity, enough to push the temperature + humidity number to 150 (which, as you may recall, is too close to 160 for my comfort).  During the course of the run, the conditions did not get much better, exacerbated by the fact that I am a really freaking slow runner so everything took a long, long time.  But no matter.  It is now done.  With any luck, these will be the worst conditions I encounter for such a lengthy distance.

I ran my normal route around the north part of the golf course neighborhood, then went over to the south part to loop miles 7ish-13ish.  Overall, it was a really nice route, particularly because there were convenient water stops: one about 1/4 (or 3/4 on the return) of the way through and another at the halfway point.  Very useful.  Probably would not have done so well without them, particularly since I forgot to pick up some of the healthy Gatorade stuff, so I was stuck with only water (and, naturally, my sports beans).  When I felt my brain wandering, I reminded myself that this was a combination of tired/need sports beans/want hydration and to keep focused.

Completing 20 miles feels like a real accomplishment, even though there is still the long race to go.  I've been thinking a lot about the overall training during the past week and am pleased that I've done a good job at getting out there and running, even when I don't feel like it.  This hasn't always been easy, but on the whole, I think that it's been easier than I expected.  I'm also really thrilled that I have such a wonderful neighborhood at my disposal because that has made everything much more pleasant.  As I ran today, I thought about how fortunate I am to live in and around a neighborhood that offers so many options for routes, while also providing shade, scenery, and very little traffic:

And pretty, colored trees!

And now, on to Taper Time!

Whoomp here it is

I just mapped my 20-mile run for this Sunday.  You can see it here.

Last week of high mileage

The alarm went off this morning and I felt whatever the diametric opposite of motivation is to go out and run.  However, I reminded myself that this is the last week of big miles.  Next week marks the start of taper time, when your mileage drops so that you are ready for the race.  So I just need to get through this one week.  Eventually, that was what got me out the door, although it was not a quick process by any stretch of the imagination.

Yet again, my schedule is weird this week since I will be traveling to Gainesville tomorrow.  I decided to flip the 10 mile run that was supposed to take place on Thursday and do it instead today (now Thursday will be 5 miles).  This was probably part of why I was somewhat unmotivated this morning: 10 miles is a long way.  In fact, not that long ago I would have called it a long run.  But I had to get it done this morning since there is a chance of showers later and I figured I did not want to risk it.

The run itself wasn't so bad once I just got out there.  Some days the entire battle is just getting out there.  The first part was mostly overcast, which was great.  Then there was more sun than I would have liked, but a somewhat cool breeze came with it.  I say 'somewhat' because it is more humid than normal at this time of year, so it wasn't quite as enjoyable as it could have been.  Not crazy summer hot or anything though, which is good. 

Only 29 more miles to go this week!  <-- this is a remarkably demotivating thought.

I crossed the street...

For some reason, I used to think that the ABBA song 'I Had a Dream' contained the lyric, 'I crossed the street' in it.  Presumably, the line should be, 'I crossed the stream/I had a dream' since that makes much more sense.  But I still think of my version when I hear this song.  And today, I did just that.  I crossed the street.  Prior to today's run, which was 18 miles, I could find ways of circling around the northern part of the golf course neighborhood, thereby avoiding having to cross a relatively major street.  Today, since I had to add another mile from the last long run, I decided the time had come.  I was rewarded with some pretty good Florida scenery:

You can actually see parts of the Hillsborough River on this side of the street because not everything is built up.  This picture was taken near a public boat launch.

More of the Hillsborough River

If you're curious to know what this part of Florida would look like had northerners not descended and built golf courses, here is an idea:

Vacant lot right next to the river.

The street next to the river in this neighborhood is also called Riverhills Drive, only it's the southern part and the other half -- which had some of the houses featured previously on the blog -- is the northern part.  They have some pretty ritzy homes on the southern part too:

I just wonder about their cooling bills.

You can actually look out on the river from that giant porch.

Overall, though, today's run was not nearly as enjoyable as the last long run.  In part, this was probably because I shouldn't have been doing a long run today after only 5 days' rest from the previous long run and a 9-mile run on Tuesday.  Physically, though, I didn't feel too awful, at least not any more awful than I would expect from a long run.  And good news, body: you only have one more this week, and it's only 5 miles!  The real problem is that the spectacular cold front is going away.  The temperature at the start of the run was a very palatable 58F, but unfortunately the humidity was around 80%.  By the time I finished the run (many, many hours later), the temperature was already 75F; the RealFeel on Accuweather calculates it at 82F.  Let me tell you: it felt closer to 82F than 75F.

I could actually feel when things were starting to go wrong physically because of the weather.  For instance, before I had my last dose of sport beans, I could really feel my mind starting to wander.  I opted to take three packs and had one each 4.5 miles, which I think was fine overall, but the last one was definitely a necessity.  How could I tell?  I would start coming up with alternatives to my route or thinking about changing what I was doing.  Bad idea.  After I had the sport beans, I just continued on and all went well.  Another issue: if I was in the sun for too long, the same kinds of things started to happen.  Luckily, there was a shady version of the route near the end, but at one point, I think that I was in the sun for a bit too long.  My brain definitely got off track there.

I almost fell again today.  It's time to admit that these aren't flukes, but probably fatigue errors.  It happens.  Not much that can be done about them except to hope that I don't actually fall!

16 miles? During a cold front? Not a problem!

Today's long run was the 16-miler.  The cold front continued, which was probably the most fortuitous weather ever.  I was concerned about today's long run because it coincided with the switch to Daylight Savings.  Just because the clock goes back by an hour does not mean that Mr. Florida Sun cooperates.  I wanted to make sure that I got started early enough so that 10am did not feel like 11am.  However, with the cold front, this concern was irrelevant.  I went out a bit later than I had hoped (was planning to go out around 6:30am, and went instead closer to 7am), but it was fine.

Apparently, I have almost lost any skills I once had for how to dress in cooler weather.  The basic rule that I like to follow is to dress for the finish, not the beginning, because of course you do warm up while you run.  But Florida does not really require much thinking in the appropriate dress department.  Generally, I just go in shorts and a performance singlet.  So when the temperature drops, it now confuses me.  I didn't want to overdress, but I also didn't want to freeze at the beginning.  I went with shorts, long-sleeve performance shirt, and an actual ballcap.  Actual ballcaps are too hot normally, so I figured that it would pay off today.  This combo worked pretty well and I didn't feel uncomfortable at any point -- okay, maybe a little cold to start.

The temperature was in the 40s to start, then got into the 60s by the end.  In other words: perfect.  And the dew point was in the 30s.  As much as Florida drives me nuts, the weather during cold fronts is pretty much ideal (how unfortunate that cold fronts are maybe 5% of the year).  You get the cold, Arctic wind from up north, but you don't usually feel cold because the sun is still warm.  It's pretty easy to cope with these conditions.  If you feel cold from the wind, you get the sun to warm you up.  And if you feel too warm, you go in the shade or wait for a gust of wind.

As tends to happen in good weather conditions, I am reminded that I actually do not hate running.  I know, I've been over this before, but I really do sometimes forget.  The weather here is generally very difficult to negotiate for me, no matter what time of day.  So when I actually get to run in reasonable conditions, it is a real treat.  And I realized something else.  I may not be very good at running long distances, but I don't mind running long distances.  Especially in good weather.  I feel like I've reached a good point mentally where long runs don't actually feel so long and I stay strong through the last part.  For instance, I got to 4.5 miles from the end today and felt like the rest was going to be just fine to finish.  This is encouraging and a great feeling.  The last part wasn't even so bad, overall.  Now I just have to remember how those last miles feel when I run the real marathon.

Also, here is hoping for similar weather conditions!

I did have one small freakout today when I checked my time around 6 miles.  For some unknown reason, I convinced myself that 8 miles (the halfway point) was around a quarter of the marathon.  I started freaking out because I thought that I was running significantly slower than I had anticipated.  It took me until somewhere around 12 miles to realize that actually, 8 miles is closer to two-thirds of the way through a marathon.  This makes a pretty big difference, as the following fictional comparison demonstrates (fictional because I do not run this fast):

• 1 hour/8 miles in my erroneous first version would result in a 4-hour marathon;
• 1 hour/8 miles would be closer to a 3-hour marathon.

See how that happened?  It added a whole hour.  Even for this imaginary fast person.

I have one last comment about today's run.  When I train, I don't listen to music, but I do sometimes get music in my head.  For a while, it was various chamber music of the nineteenth century (I know, I'm a geek); for instance, Schumann's string quartet in A major (op. 41/3) would often be my imagined accompaniment.  You don't need to tell me that this is weird, I know already.  There is something about the strings all working together in chamber music that I feel works while running.  Today, though, I suddenly had Bob Seger's 'Hollywood Nights' burst out of nowhere around mile 5.  Random, even though it was on the radio yesterday.

The best moment ever was when I was 2 miles from the end of a long run while training for a half-marathon and Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' started up as if on cue in my head.  Seemed appropriate.

Whoops

Yesterday's 'long' run was so short that I completely forgot to blog about it!  It was only six miles.  Hard to think of that as a long run after the past month, I do have to say.  And I realized that instead of being annoyed that it got hot during Taper Week, I should be grateful.  It would be even worse if it gets hot during a normal week with much longer runs.

Anyway, I've been reflecting quite a bit on how things are going since this is the last Taper Week before the real Taper Weeks that will occur right before the actual marathon.  Crazy!  In response to this, I think that I've started hording.  Yesterday I went to the Running Center and stocked up on 'sport beans,' opting only for the ones with caffeine (apparently, they do not all have caffeine, as I discovered around mile 10 of the 14-mile run.  Boo).  Today at the grocery store, I started hording carbs.  Because I will likely need carbs.  And kept reminding myself to stock up for when I am ridiculously hungry, which will probably start sometime tomorrow after a 9-mile run.  Also, I bought a big container of chocolate milk so that it's just sitting at home and I don't need to detour to the CVS and stand in line for, like, 15 minutes after a long run to get my chocolate milk because someone ahead of me feels that the marked discount on Tampa Bay Rays cowbells does not match what was in the sales flier (why yes, that did actually happen, how did you guess?).  I'm flipping the schedule this week because of work, so it will be 9M tomorrow, 5M with hills on Thursday, and long run Sunday.  The week after will having some flipping as well.  Stay tuned!

I have only 3 actual long runs remaining before the marathon: 16M, 18M, and 20M.  This schedule stops at 20M.  Please don't ask me if I am worried that this will not be enough training or if I think I will make it or if I feel that there should be another longer run.  The answer to all of those questions is that yes, I'm concerned.  But I'm reminding myself that it's not about the actual plan (to some extent) but your belief in the plan.  I mean, I could technically run a marathon tomorrow, regardless of how I trained, it just might not go so well and I might really hate myself the morning after -- and all of this will likely happen no matter what training plan I follow.  So I need to have faith that this plan will work.  Also, I'm already breaking it down in my head that it will be 2M + 2M + 2.2M to finish.  That's it.  Just three groups of two at the end.  This can totally be done.  And will be, dammit.

I also keep trying to do the math for 10% markers (2.6 miles) during the run but keep breaking down after 13.1.  It is a good time waster, though.

I do have to say that as I'm getting into this last stretch of training, I'm not feeling too awful.  No major injuries to report, no serious problems, and as long as I don't bang a shopping cart straight into my shin like I did today, no real pain.  Phew.  I may not be fast, but I think that I am pretty durable.

This post has lots of numbers for my non-quantitative brain.  No idea why.

The long runs get long

Today was 14 miles.  I ran 14 miles. 14 miles is the longest distance I have ever run in one go, beating out my previous record of 13.1 miles by 0.9.  Exciting!  This is a training plan with no room for a feel-good, pat yourself on the back, you made it half way 13 mile run, apparently.  Instead, you crank right through the halfway point and on to 14.  Half and then a little bit.

(It seems crazy that this was just short of half, it really felt very long).

It got hot and muggy again today.  Not quite at summer levels, but also not quite what I would ideally want while running.  The combined temperature + humidity was closer to 150 than 160, but 150 is still rather high.  Certainly by the end, the sun felt like it was beating down perhaps a little too much.  Also, I was insanely thirsty as I was nearing the final part.  Water was my friend today.  I took a water bottle of the healthy Gatorade that I usually drink, then refilled the bottle with water around mile 8 (this was, of course, my trusty fanny pack running belt).  This was not quite enough, but I still made it through.

Here's the weird thing: my mile splits were faster than last week's 12-mile run in better conditions.  Not better by much, but still better.  No idea how that happened.

Today I also developed a new strategy with regard to counting down miles.  Usually, I count down every 10%, but today I decided that waiting for 1.4 miles felt too long.  Instead, I focused on 5%, so only 0.7.  I liked this approach and will keep it up for the marathon, I think.  If I run with my phone.  Which is not a given at this point seeing as how I don't think the battery will last.  I did develop a save-battery strategy today, which is to power it down during boring stretches when I don't actually need to know how much distance is left.  I think that this might work well.  12 miles was pushing the upper limit of the battery, apparently.

Another new trick today was taking running jelly beans (technically, they are called sports beans).  I had the chance to stop by my local running store yesterday and picked some packages up.  Two came with me on the run today.  They are awesome.  Not only do you get fuel while running, they also provide a jolt of caffeine.  And they do taste like jelly beans.  Best invention ever (at least it is the best invention for long-distance running that I know about!).

12-mile redo

Today was the long run and for the second straight week, it was 12 miles.  This repetition was kind of nice seeing as how last week's 12-mile run was not all that much fun.  In some ways, I am really spoiled running here.  The neighborhood is quiet, I don't have to worry about traffic or people, and I can pretty easily find routes that provide enough distance.  These are not opportunities that I enjoyed last week in San Francisco.  As a result, the run was overall more peaceful and I felt pretty good about it overall.  It's weird: two weeks ago, I felt wiped out from a 10-mile run.  This week, 12 miles felt fine (okay, I'm tired now and somewhat stiff, but not as bad as I felt after the 10 mile).  Next week is 14 miles, which technically I did last week in California if you could the 2-mile walk I had to do to get to the ferry.  So that's a good sign!

I caved and bought the 'hydration belt:'

Yes, it is essentially a glorified fanny pack.  But it is awfully convenient for carrying around a water bottle without having to keep it in my hand (like I did with my other one).  Plus I can put my Mini Clif Bars in that pocket, then easily access them during the run.  So yeah.  Form before fashion in this case.

At first, I thought that I would not be able to get it around my hips.  My hips are rather wide and you needed to length the strap by letting out extra part in a way that was not clear.  I was thinking that 'Too Fat for my Running Fanny Pack' would be a great name for a blog, but was more relieved that this was not, in fact, the case.

The actual run was more of the same: circling around the same basic area in the golf course area.  Weather remains remarkably enjoyable for Florida.  Even running in the sun near the end of the run was not all that killer.  This is a very nice change from a month ago!

The Best-Laid Plans

I did my long run today since I am flying back to Florida tomorrow (as a reminder, I am in California).  When I realized that I would have to coordinate a long run in California, I came up with a plan:

1) Wake up in time to leave for 8:30am in order to walk 1.6 miles for 9:10am ferry to San Francisco (I'm staying in Alameda).
1.5) Pick up a water en route to take on my run.
2) Run by the water in San Francisco.  Run 6 miles in one direction, then turn around and return.
3) Eat well-earned dim sum in Chinatown.

Oh wow, did things ever not happen that way.

Surprise #1: I checked the weather and it was 56F out.  That is an absolutely fantastic temperature for running, but I was concerned that it might not be as nice on a ferry.  So I wanted to take a sweater, but could not find a good way of doing this.  I chose a cotton t-shirt and then took my sweater with me, wearing it fashionably wrapped around my waist while running.  Really.  It's a wool sweater.  Not a very good real runner look.

The next surprise occurred when I started walking toward the ferry.  I opted for a leisurely walk pace, leaving what I thought was plenty of time to get from my hotel to the ferry stop.  I grew quite confused when it was 8:55am and I still had a mile to go.  Turns out that the actual distance was not 1.6 miles -- that was just one part of the walk.  The actual distance was 2.2 miles.  I didn't make it for the 9:10am ferry. And trust me, this place is in the middle of nowhere, Alameda.  There weren't even any places on the way to get a water.

Fortunately for me, it is Fleet Week in San Francisco.  Or, as you will soon learn, unfortunately for me, it is Fleet Week in San Francisco.  The good part of Fleet Week is that there are more ferries.  The bad news is that everyone and his/her brother goes to San Francisco for Fleet Week, particularly today since there was also the air show.  So more ferries, but more ferries because of many, many more people.  However, I did not have to wait an hour, so that's good.

By the time I actually got to SF, I was pretty much itching to get running.  I thought that, as per the original plan, I would be there by around 9:30am, but because the ferry did Alameda - Oakland - SF (instead of the normal route Oakland - Alameda - SF), I didn't actually get there until closer to 11.  I just started running, going past Fisherman's Wharf and heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge.  By the way, there were people, but apparently runners near Fisherman's Wharf act like they own the place and run on the road.  It's pretty fun actually.

And so I headed toward the Golden Gate Bride, noticing that there were large people amassing near the shore in preparation for the airshow.  Not good.  I also noticed, around Fort Mason, that there was a hefty hill:

Legit hill.

I was hoping that this would be one of the few hills and I was correct.  So that was a nice surprise.

Around 3.8 miles, I had reached the Warming Hut near the Golden Gate Bridge:

Incidentally, none of these pictures is mine.  I didn't bring my camera.

I looked around for water fountain, didn't find one, and decided the time had come to stop and get a water.  There was a line (because people were amassing!), but I felt that it was worth stopping for a few minutes to prevent something very bad from happening.  I then drank about half of it over the next 5 minutes.  Definitely I could have developed a better game plan.  Why I did not just bring my water bottle from home, I have no idea.

I ran toward the Golden Gate Bridge, when I learned something interesting: you can't keep running in that direction beyond that point.  It's closed due to security issues.  So I had reached only around 4 miles, and had to turn around.  This was not a good sign because I had really wanted to go the straight 6, then turn back.  While I was running, I got thinking about one of my favorite books from when I was younger, Anastasia On Her Own by Lois Lowry.  The basic premise is that the protagonist, Anastasia Krupnik, is apparently a nascent control freak who wants to 'help' her mother organize her life.  She makes up these extensive lists to sort out the various chores that need to be done around the house.  Then her mother is called away to California, so Anastasia actually gets left in charge.  At this point, she realizes that the housekeeping schedule requires the addition of Unexpected Events, since there are unpredictable interruptions that take her off schedule.  I love this Unexpected Events idea.  That's basically how I felt about my whole damn run today.

The major flaw in my plan was that more and more people were in San Francisco as the air show was about to begin and I was heading right into this whole mess.  I tried to add on some distance by looping around places, such as near Crissy Field and the Marina District, but it still wasn't enough to make up the extra 4 miles that needed to be added.  As a result, I wound up in lots of crowds (boo), stopped at lights (double boo), and overall irritated with much of the run.  To give you a sense of just how irritating this got, at the 11.9 mile mark, I ran into a crowd of people and almost had to walk.  That is not the time you want to walk.  Instead, I hung a left and ran around the outside landscaped section of one of the buildings (I know this sounds weird, but I can't think of a better way of describing it).  Also, apparently I looked at my phone right when I started 11.9 because I can't think of another 0.1 of a mile that felt like it took so long.  Did I mention that my phone kept going into camera mode and ate a whole bunch of its battery?

It is worth noting that despite all of this, I still didn't give up.  And that was a good thing!  Even though it was by no means an ideal run.  I don't even know what the time was because everything was messed up from all of that starting and stopping.

Also, I had to run the Fort Mason hill again, but I noticed something.  In a way, the hill was great because it distracted me from anything else happening.  All I was thinking about was getting up the hill and finishing it, then keeping form while running back down.  This kind of focus was exactly what was needed right around the 9 mile mark.

A less nice surprise was the fact that because I started late, and because I was still running late, I wound up with a pretty decent sunburn on the bottom half of my face and neck.  Classy!

After all of this, I decided that it wasn't worth going to Chinatown since it would be crowded and it was far away (comparatively).  Instead, I opted to find a place to eat near Fisherman's Wharf.  I wanted to go to Boudin and have a chowder in a sourdough bowl:

However, I couldn't because they would not let me use my credit card without showing an ID.  Of course, I had no ID because I had only taken the basic necessities (by which I mean a credit card and my hotel key card).  The manager would not give me an exception.  My reaction is likely best described as Massachusetts. But come on: you've just run 12 irritating miles, you haven't eaten in almost 6 hours apart from the Mini ClifBar you had on your run, and some guy is not letting you get a chowder in a sourdough bowl because you don't have an ID?  Dude.

Instead, I went to Salty's and got a fishwich:

Yes!

This is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted after my run.  I also got a side of fries.  In hindsight, I wish I had ordered the garlic fries because they smelled insanely good.

The final pleasant surprise had to do with my trip home.  I got on the ferry only to learn that I was on the SF - Angel Island - Alameda - Oakland ferry.  So that added a good hour to the trip.  Seriously.  This time I decided to disembark in Oakland and get a taxi back to the hotel since I still needed to go back to my conference for 6pm.  However, there was not a cab to be seen in this part of Oakland.  A very large Bed, Bath and Beyond, but no cabs.  Remember, my phone was dead, so I couldn't just call.  Finally I located a hotel, got them to call me a cab, and made it back.  It was now 4:30pm, giving me just enough time to shower, throw on different shoes, get another cab, and get back to the conference.  Phew.  Made it around 5:57pm.  I had a very classy red sunburn to go with the purple top that I was wearing.  Super classy!

There was one last, nice surprise.  Seeing the air show over the bay from the ferry was pretty much sublime.  And might have made this whole, entire, convoluted adventure worth it.

The weather gets better

Since Friday, I have heard the following descriptors used with regard to the weather:

'Gorgeous.'
'Perfect.'
'Wonderful.'

Allow me to point out that, in fact, it is still in the upper 80s during the day.  However, the humidity and high dew points have dropped, which does make a considerable difference.  Which is to say that the humidity still starts over 80% in the morning, but becomes more tolerable as the day goes on.  In fact, as I write this around 2pm, the humidity is below 35%, which means now there is a danger of forest fires.  Seriously.  This is a 'red flag' alert by the National Weather Service due to the low humidity.

But I am not complaining.  It was much nicer for running this morning.  Maybe not perfect, but awfully good.  Almost winter conditions -- oh, why am I pretending?  These are basically winter conditions.  Unfortunately, I got going a little too fast as a result, particularly around miles 3-7.  Today was 10 miles, incidentally.  As a result, miles 7-10 were much more of a challenge than maybe they needed to be.  But that's okay.  The key thing is that I finished.

Also, I could have done without the steep-grade hill around mile 8.5.  It's Florida.  How are there suddenly steep-grade hills?

When I was about half-way through mile 8, I started craving green iced tea in a huge way.  This is new and it suggests that maybe the time has come to rethink my hydrating strategies -- not that I would take green tea.  When I trained for the half marathon before, my trusty water bottle that has a convenient strap for holding it in my hand did the job just fine.  However, I am starting to think that I need more than simply one water bottle's worth of stuff.  Plus I am going to have to come up with a plan to stash those jelly beans for athletes or whatever I settle on using during the marathon.  Unfortunately, many of the options that you have for stashing such things are called fuel belts and they look, essentially, like fanny packs.  Running is not a time to look fashionable, as I well know.  And anyway, it is probably time to get something at least.

I was in the golf course neighborhood today, which was considerably more subdued in Halloween decorations.  Maybe they will pick it up closer to the event.

I have to say that the 10 miles felt like an Achievement.  I'm not sure why because it's not even half-way through the marathon distance (13.1), but still, it felt good.  And while I think that I could have been wiser in my strategy, I did still manage to finish, even with a very slight bit of oomph at the end.  I don't feel like I could do a marathon right now, but that's okay because I don't have to do one for another two months.  Until then, I need to focus on training consistently and things will be fine.  Today might not have felt good (particularly around mile 8.5, which as you probably figured out was the challenge portion), but some of it did.  Next week is 12 miles, which will be even more challenging because those will be Californian ones.

Another 8 miles down

Today's long run was another 8 miles as a slight taper from last week.  Next week is 10, then I leap to 12 after that.  I was a bit concerned that 8 miles was going to be my cursed distance, particularly after the last 8 miles and because the weather today was back in the hot/humid range.  I remember that during the summer of 2007, 6 miles was my cursed distance.  Every time I tried to run 6 miles, something went wrong, like it got too hot or something (honestly, I can't remember what the other ones were now, but for some reason my 6-mile runs just never quite went well).  But today wasn't so bad.  The start of the run was overcast at least this time and once the sun was up, things were okay as long as I stayed in the shade.  Fortunately, much of where I run is shady, so it wasn't such a major issue.  Things were less fun in the sunny parts -- particularly at the point where I turned around to go back today, which is a double whammy since it is sunny and up a Florida hill.  However, it was still not awful.

I am pretty knocked out today, though, more than I usually am on Sunday.  I'm not sure if that is from running too hard or from the weather change, but I'm glad that tomorrow is a day off.  A well-earned day off no less.  Probably the lesson here is to not run so fast in heat, but hey, at least I am still trying!

Modular Homes of the Future!

Today's run, 9 miles, was actually quite nice.  The temperature was in the low 70s to start and as long as I stayed in the shade, it was fine all the way through.  Nice change!  Here's hoping that it doesn't get hot and icky again (I can always dream).

Yesterday was a day off and I took a pass on the gym.  My legs are feeling a bit tired, so I thought that this was for the best.  However, I did move a couch, so I can pretend like that was exercise, despite the fact that it was not a heavy couch and I had help.

I took some more photos today and am calling this collection Modular Homes of the Future!  These are mostly from Riverhills Drive again.  I chose them because they look like they were designed in the 1960s to look like futuristic homes.  Actually, some of these homes were designed by semi-famous architects (I am not an expert, so I'm not sure on these points) and are part of the Mid-Century modern movement, but I have no idea if it is these specific homes.  Anyway, enjoy!

This is the quintessential Modular Home of the Future in my view.

Does this remind anyone else of a fort?

I've noticed that several Modular Homes of the Future hide their modularness through flora.

This one seems more Floridian, somehow.  Maybe because of the lighter color?

This one is more like a Modular Home of the Bayou

I think that this one is the most imposing of the Modular Homes of the Future.

Modular Home of the Future: Now With Silver Metallic Door!

This last one is not a Modular Home of the Future but rather a Weird Retro Home of the Past (and I didn't actually run by it today, but I did recently and felt that it was noteworthy):

More Riverhills Drive

Sunday is run day!  Yes, that's right, it was the long run this morning, which was 7 miles.  Slightly longer than last week so I added to my route.  I did the hill street then back (~2 miles total), down Riverhills (~4 miles total), and added on a bit at the end which took me past the golf club (~1 mile).  As I was heading to the golf club, I was nearly hit by two retirees in a golf cart who were driving on the sidewalk.  Welcome to Florida.  I don't think any single moment has summed it up more succinctly.

Today was not nearly as humid as last week, but still not the awesome conditions of Tuesday.  Ah well.  You need some runs that will stick out as amazing, right?  If all of them were like that, they would just get boring (not really, but allow me to live in my fantasy world).

After the run, I went around and got a few more pictures.  Still no 18th-hole-epiphanies like Billy Graham.  Here are some of the favorite houses from today, with the added bonus that you can see the power of Mr. Florida Sun:

That porch up top kills me.  No idea what purpose it could serve, except it might be fun as a place to hang out during parties.

Good that it does not snow here with that roof.  Notice power of Mr. Florida Sun.

This house really caught my attention today.  I like the trees in the front too.

This house has a whole lot of stuff going on.  There is also a gazebo off to the left that I couldn't fit in the frame.  Rock the casbah!

And my favorite yard of the morning:

Flamingos on parade!

I think I'm getting the Mr. Florida Sun thing from when I did sailing as a kid and they used to always refer to the wind as 'Mr. Wind.'  As in, 'when Mr. Wind comes at you from this angle, it is to your maximum advantage to have your sails at this angle.'

The last of the short long runs

This morning was a 5-mile run and I toured my neighborhood.  Started after 8am, so there was still some humidity, but there was cloud cover so I didn't get the full effect of the sun.  As a comparison between this weather and Boston, I lost more than 2 minutes (!) off of my mile split from the last time I did a 5-mile run.  Yeesh.  Also, I didn't stretch as well as I might have liked yesterday after the Florida Death Run, mainly because everywhere I looked, there was a lot of bugs.  Frequently, several varieties in one spot.  So I decided to take a pass on doing a thorough stretch following the run.

This week marks the start of a new training program, one that has me running only 4 days a week: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.  The purpose of the previous plan was to get my mileage back up and I'm having no issues physically with a total of 17 miles per week.  So onto the 'real' plan now, which starts with 19 miles.  The general guideline for increasing mileage is no more than 10% per week or else you might get injured, which is why I wanted a month to settle back into running a normal amount.  Time to start progressing toward the big numbers!

Today also marked the last day that my 'long' run was 5 miles.  Next week's long run is 6 and we just go up from there.  Hence the title of this post.