Whether the Weather

If I didn’t tell you that I took this composite photo on Saturday, what would you imagine the weather to be like? I think of a cool fall morning. Sadly, of course, it was warm and humid, just like every day in the summer here. But sometimes we get a slight break, and that break is now. The difference between Monday night’s sweltering, hot, and generally miserable run and last night’s breezy, warm and much more pleasant run can be summed up as follows: Hurricane Dolly. Yep, even though it’s hitting way down in Brownsville, the outer bands of the storm are bringing us clouds and some rain. Last night it was still almost 90 degrees, but it was overcast and breezy, so the weather felt much more bearable than Monday.
I ran another 4 miles out on the trail, 3.5 easy and the final 0.5 at 10:00 pace just to remember what that feels like. I walked for about 5 minutes to cool down and then headed inside to see if Jose was still in the gym. (He has always done the elliptical machine, but this week he decided to give running a try. He’s starting out slow — i.e. run/walk method and avoiding the heat by staying inside — which I think is a good way to begin. I’m excited he is running, even if it is mainly because he says he feels like running gives you the most bang for you buck. Which is pretty true.) He was still there, and had 15 minutes left on the treadmill, so I hopped onto the treadmill next to his and ran another 1.2 miles. Hurrah! 5.2 miles for the day, with a 10 minute break between the first 4 and the last 1.2.
We’ll see what the weather is like tonight (and what time I get out of work, since I have a load checkout at 4:00), but if I had to guess, I’d say I won’t be bricking tonight. This is unfortunate, since it’s been a week since I’ve been on my bike. But I’ll run instead, and probably tomorrow too. I know it probably doesn’t make any difference, but I feel like I need to be diligent in my workouts this week since I’ll be on vacation for 10 days. While I’ll be quite active on vacation, I definitely won’t be swimming (too cold) or biking (except slowly on a rented cruiser bike). And though I’ll have a pair of old running shoes, I probably won’t be running, though there is a 10K in Anchorage on August 2 that is tempting.