Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Winter Returns


I've shuffled the plan around a little bit this week. It reminded me of one of these 15-puzzles that I used to have as a kid in the 60's. The plan has Monday off almost every week. I've mentioned before that Friday works better for me, at least every other week. Friday would definitely be my preferred day this week with a 22 miler on the plan for Saturday, so I slid everything over a day to accommodate this.

I mentioned last week that I visited a friend in hospice. On Friday, 3/16, John went home to be with the Lord. John was a LA County Sheriff. The chaplain wrote these words about John in a newsletter for the Ten Four Ministry - "I count it a great honor and privilege to have known John in this life; and I look forward to seeing him in the life to come. John was a man who loved the Lord deeply, who loved his wife and children passionately and sacrificially, who cherished prayer and fellowship, and who deeply cared for other people. I knew John to be not only a gentleman, but a gentle man. My one regret is that I did not meet John sooner than I did. But thanks be to God that I was blessed to call John my friend, my brother in Christ, and my brother behind the badge." A service for John will be held on Saturday at 11:00. With that in mind I did some more shuffling and moved my long run to Friday - I took a vacation day.

Last week the advent of DST and summer-like weather brought many people out into the streets for some exercise. The gloom that began during my run Saturday in Chino Hills has deepened and continued so far this week and the temperatures have cooled considerably. I guess last week's warm weather was just a little teaser. As might be expected the streets are barren of people again. The extra daylight, although hidden under cloud cover and 30 degrees cooler temperatures, wasn't enough to keep the bears from returning to their hibernation.

During Monday's 6 miler I saw only one other runner and only a handful of walkers. Tuesday I had a local travel day scheduled. I went out to Rancho Cucamonga in the morning to visit one doctor and then traveled down to Escondido with my boss and another engineer to see 7 patients at another office. Escondido is about a 2 hour drive from our office. We didn't get back until 6:00 in a drizzle.

I had planned on running the Bradbury horse trail near work, but with the late return I would have ended up running at least part of the run in the dark. That particular route in the dark and drizzle didn't do much for me. I was a little worn out from the car time so decided that if I was going to run in the dark anyway I would go home first, relax a little, maybe even have dinner and then go out later on a familiar, tried and true, route.

I finally got out at 8:45. Because of the late hour I had mentally prepared myself to run a shorter run, 4 miles, and save the planned 6 for the weekend. A little more shuffling of the puzzle. As I was changing I realized that the furnace was running. By definition that meant that it was cold outside. I wore shorts, but I wore an under armor snug fit shirt and a long sleeve shirt. About a half mile into the run I realized I had over dressed. By two miles I couldn't take it anymore and took off the long sleeve. I was glad I was running under the cover of darkness as those under armor shirts don't do much for camouflaging the spare tire and love handles. Also at this point I decided that since I was already out here and I didn't really know exactly where the 2 mile turn around was, I might as well just get the 6 miler over and done with. The puzzle was shuffled back a move. As it turns out the temperature was in the low 50's, perfect for a run (the drizzle had blown over, too). Predicting the outside temp based on the furnace running wasn't very reliable.

Tonight, Wednesday, I headed over to the dam right after work for 8. I wanted to keep the pace easy. At each mile marker I realized I was doing around 8:30 miles. I would try to slow it down a little but would end up at the same pace by the time I hit the mile mark. Once I get into a groove, I am nearly powerless to change it.

Barring any other change in plans the puzzle is set for the rest of the week at 0-22-4-4.


5 comments:

Wes said...

Thanks for the heads up on more cold weather coming :-) Maybe a warm from out of the Gulf will ruin it for us. LOL. If that's the case, it will probably bring rain. Those under armour shirts are nice. I have two, but I need to get a dry fit long sleeve. Hoping to pick up soon. My condolences on your friend. He will be missed, but there is great comfort in knowing that he has achieved his reward for a good life.

Backofpack said...

Darrell,
I'm sorry to hear about your friend's passing - from what you quoted about him, it is a loss to the greater world as well as his family and friends.

Keep the shuffling going - it's all about flexibility! I've got Yakima a week from Saturday, then a 50K, then I'll be saying hello to you in Eugene!

SoberMommie said...

Sorry to hear of your friends passing. My thoughts and prayers are with you and his family.

Looks like your still getting in some good runs. =)

Joe said...

A great tribute to your friend, Darrell...and so good of you to visit him last week in his final days.

Here in the midwest, we use an amazing thing called a "thermometer" to predict the temperature. Works really well...I recommend it.

I'll send you my temperature chart too. Mid 50s are perfect for a single LS technical shirt :-)

Unknown said...

That was nice tribute... I hope mine's half as nice, but I'll never know.