Aug 25

FIT:
Blahdeeblahdeeblah. Another day hammering away. Yesterday, I worked a ridiculoug 16 hours. Today, back up at 4:30am to start working again. One nice thing is that I found a good place to work in the early morning, before 8am. There's a nice confrence room with a lobby outside of it. I like the firm couches... and the windows! It's relaxing just working there in the dark, where it's peaceful, as the sun rises and the world wakes up. It's a good change from sitting at a fluorescent, windowless cube. I have a nice thermos of warm black tea and just work away. I have to skidaddle by 8am, though, before important people potentially start using it.

Today, after a really great introduction to the book of James by an excellent Christian studies professor, I hustled outside to catch the last rays of light. It was exactly at sunset, so it was still bright when I got out and quickly tried to put on all my gear: headlamp, Garmin, mp3 player, Shadow pak to hold keys. Then, off!

Since the HS XC course had to change due to a building they put in the middle of it, I didn't have a path to follow anymore, so I meandered around at will. It was kind of nice... fun looking for the trail. A couple parts had the blue course markings, but only small segments. The wooded section was redone for some reason... now, it's shorter, and there are many things that look like paths but are actually.... runoffs or something. Deceptive. Did some exploring. It quickly got dark. At first, I used the headlamp, but bugs were attracted to it, and it was kind of gross seeing them coming towards the headlamp (or, rather, me going towards them... maybe both), so I turend it off and managed alright by just staying on the flat sports fields, which combined, are about half a mile per lap. The light from either the moon or more distant big lights gave me enough to get around okay.

5.8 in 51:00, 8:48. I think I was really slow at first. My legs get sluggish after not running for a couple days... plus the extreme sleep deprivation. On top of that, exploring and having to look for paths and stuff slowed thing down. The pace naturally picked up as time went on, though. My knees started getting somewhat poundy... the TA's and stuff have been gradually getting inflamed. Haven't iced in a couple of weeks because there was no need. Now there's a need to start it up again. My stride's different outside than on the treadmill. How? I'm in the stance phase longer, at least when it's dark, since footing is unsure. I also take longer (time-wise) strides will fuller ROM? Just guesses. I haven't done a base run in a long time, so this run is the only data point I've had in a while.

The bugs... one bad thing about summer/spring running. In your eyes, mouth... blah.