Acadia dreaming

Today's workout (elliptical) 25 minutes

Take me home country roads

The temperatures and humidity have dropped and today would have been a good day for a run, but I opted for cross training in preparation for vacation next week. We're heading north, to Maine, where we'll spend time at Acadia National Park on Mount Desert island near Ellsworth. There are great carriage roads for running and places to hike along Cadillac mountain. I think we'll forgo the bikes but we'll get plenty of exercise on this trip.

It was a year ago that we visited Colorado and I had the opportunity to run at altitude for the first time. I had some good experiences running in foreign terrain, the hotel had some rocky trails behind it that were lined with cactus scrub. Garden of the Gods had paved trails that wound through magnificent sandstone rock formations. We also visited Bear Creek Regional Park where I was able to run beautiful green trails accompanied by deer and other indigenous animals.

We'll also visit Portsmouth NH and Portland ME on the trip and I'm sure there will be great places to run at those locations. My biggest concern is packing enough running gear to make it through the week.

My Runner's World moment

Emerging Runner: "Don't quit your day job"

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

Besides my occasional Central Park runs, my "day job" has nothing at all to do with running. Yesterday these two worlds collided (or at least touched) at an industry lunch event. A small group of us had been invited to discuss digital media and sitting across the room from me was David Willey, the editor of Runner's World magazine. Despite the temptation I didn't ask him if I could write a guest column.

My run this morning went fine. The humidity is supposedly lower today, and that may be true, but lower is a relative term. I was already drenched in sweat by the 1.5 mile mark but in certain directions the cooling breeze worked as effectively as an air conditioner. I chose a completely different set of roads to run, yet completed today's run in exactly the same time as yesterday's. I am consistent if nothing else. C'mon Runner's World, give me a shot!

Should I release my inner Tarahumara?

What Hattori's aspire to be

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

I received an offer to test a pair of  huarache running sandals whose design is based on the shoes worn by the Tarahumara runners in Mexico. My first reaction was "Why not?" since I'm a fan of minimal shoes. I would like to try these shoes that got so much play in the book "Born to Run" but I am definitely not a sandals kind of guy. I would never have made it as a gladiator. I'm still deciding and if I go for it I'll write up my experiences on this blog and on Runner's Tech Review.

This morning I got back out on the road and probably had one of the best running experiences a person will have today. It's not that I ran especially well (though I didn't do badly), it was the cooling breeze and temperatures that were still in the low 70's. It is supposed to get oppressively hot so if you were hoping to run today you probably should have done it by now. Perhaps it would be a little more pleasant if you were running in sandals.

Hard on the body, easy on the mind

Yesterday's run was really therapeutic, yet I almost missed out on it because I was so exhausted from the weekend. We'd had a special event for our daughter that involved many visitors from out of town and much entertaining around the house and pool. My stamina for running far exceeds that of talking (and worse, listening) so, after the last of our guests headed home, I debated whether to run or rest.

Since I didn't have time to run on Saturday I felt a little guilty about resting, yet again. Guilt won out and I made my way out the door with a target of covering about 3 miles in the hot and humid late afternoon air. The difference in temperature between sections of tree covered road versus areas without shade was noticeable. I tried to pick roads where the shade was predominant on the left side and had no illusions that I'd have a high performance run.

By the time I made it home I felt energized and the stress of the weekend and the upcoming week was far offset by a feeling of relaxation and accomplishment. It's sometimes counter-intuitive to force yourself to do something taxing when you are already feeling stressed. However, when you do it, the end result is almost always positive.

A late day run after a busy weekend

Today's run (street): 3.35 miles

It's been a very busy weekend seeing lots of friends and family. I didn't get a chance to run yesterday but I got out late this afternoon and ran a little over 5K. Temperature is posted as 82° but it feels much warmer. The humidity also felt higher than the 60% that's listed on the Weather.com. Considering that I'm a morning runner who likes the cold, I managed a credible mid-9 pace. It's going to be a busy week at the office so I'm glad I was able to get in a hard run today to help me transition from play to work.