My first week in review for a while and it is something that I am going to start doing again. A quick review of the week that was is a good thing.

COVID-19

We are doing well so far. Although I gotta admit to getting a little tired of staying around our little hill except for forays twice a week to get supplies. However, we are limiting our exposure to other people as best we can and when we go out we do wear our masks.

Yes, we are still in COVID-19 lock-down and we will probably stay close to home even after it is officially lifted by the Governor at the start of June (if she does), for a while longer to see what happens. I prefer to trust the advice of public health experts over the voice of politicians, some Facebook/Twitter friends of friends who heard it from a friend, or the Internet trolls that manage to disseminate lies and distortions.

I have a feeling that by the end of June we will have many of our answers on how the so-called “re-opening of America” is working and how the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is progressing.

Running

My general interest posts from last week:

• Skechers GoRun Razor 3 Hyper – 50 Mile Review
• Just Run…Well It Depends

RunLog posts

• Sunday – Comfortable Philbrick Laps
• Saturday – Beacons and Middle Road
• Friday – Pepin Test Course
• Thursday – Suddenly It Is Summer
• Wednesday – Recovery Run Day
• Tuesday – No Track Tuesday
• Monday – Blackflies Have Hatched

I got over 30 miles for the week and the body held up pretty well. I got in my first official speedwork session of the year, by using distances I have marked off on the road in front of our house.

While I don’t need a track to do speedwork, there is something about going to a track to do it that makes my expectations for working during the session different. It is a mental toughness that I seem to have more of at the track, where I expect to work harder. When I do the same session running on the road, getting to that same effort level doesn’t happen.

I had been averaging around 65.0 miles of combined walking and running over the past few weeks and this is the first week of over 70 miles combined since last year. I am not sure how the combined values of running and walking are helping my running, but it is what I do and I wanted to keep track of it, so I have an idea of the actual miles my legs are getting.

My running shoe rotation is probably going to undergo a bit of a revamping. I was finding that my ankles have been starting to bother me quite a bit lately when I remembered that one of the GlideRides claims was that they limited ankle movement and was wondering if that was affecting the old ankles that have been abused by too many years of playing basketball. So I dug out my New Balance Beacon v1s that I have stashed away for use at the gym and ran in them on the days that I would have normally run in the GlideRides.

The ankles suddenly stopped bothering. Which makes me think that as much as I might like the GlideRides, what is going to happen when I start running in them again this week? Let’s just hope that it is just a bad case of old ankles.

I did get the Skechers Razor 3 Hypers up to 50 miles and beyond and while I like the shoes, I have a feeling because where I run down-back on a dirt road so much that their life span is going to be around 150-200 miles. Just due to how much the rocks and stuff chew up the thin outsole on the Razor 3s which are racing flats not daily trainers or trail shoes.

Getting back to the New Balance Beacon v1, they are a running shoe that I seem to be able to run comfortably in out to 8 miles or so when their firmness starts to be a bit too much for the old legs. However, up to that point they do great for me and are the best treadmill shoes I have ever run in. It makes me wonder why I keep trying other shoes when these work so well for me. Maybe I am just a bit too adventuresome regarding my running shoes and I have a large part of the answer already in my rotation.

Life

The garden is in, the woods out back have been mostly decluttered of old downed trees and a large brush pile has been created along the old rock wall.

We also decided to get a real generator for the house, the budget is groaning over the decision, but we have had too many power outages over the last year and only foresee it getting worse, not better. We are not getting any younger, so having that bit of security for when the power goes out will be nice. Now to get the propane provider and the generator installation people to play nice together will be an interesting ordeal I have a feeling.

Reading

Life continues to move along at its own pace and I am reading more books this year than I have in a long time. The best part is that I have moved beyond the Sword and Sorcery/fantasy genre that dominated my reading for so many years and have wandered a little into the philosophical/thinking world and am enjoying the change. Oh, don’t get me wrong I still read fantasy, but just not as much.

Although I did go in purge all the free books that I added to my Kindle that I have not read over the years. I want to get back to reading more of the classics anyway, so it makes it quicker to find them and not get distracted by other choices along the way.

The reality is that

Last week was a good week overall and one where we got a lot of living done well – done. Yes, we are getting tired of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on all of our lives, but we are surviving and doing the best we can under the conditions that we have available to us.

Life will get better of that we are certain, it just might take a bit more time than we want to believe.