There is still so much going on in the world and I don’t see any of them going away or being resolved anytime soon. So the mind has been kept busy while running on those kinds of things instead of focusing on just running. It seems when I am not running harder runs that my mind tends to wander all over the place and not really on what I need to do as a runner.

Which during this time of change and turmoil is totally understandable.

The Run

Planned run and focus: Today I plan to run 3-4 miles at a comfortable pace. My focus will be on running tall and keeping the body moving forward, not all akimbo.

• Course: Town Office 4.0 Miler
• Weather: Partly Sunny, Temp 74*F, Humidity 80%, Wind – 3 mph W
• Distance: 4.09
• Time: 37:16
• Pace: 9:07

Splits:

• 1.0 – 8:53 / Slow and steady to start and stayed in a nice comfortable zone
• 2.0 – 8:54 / I did push a little harder going up the hill by the Town Office, but not super hard, otherwise just comfortable effort
• 3.0 – 9:21 / Blake Hill slowed me down and the humidity was starting to wear me down
• 4.0 – 9:23 / I did push a little harder going up Stevens Hill and then again going around the circle, otherwise I just plugged along.

The Good?

I did pretty much what I had planned on and ran the first 3.0 miles at a comfortable effort level.

The Bad?

Procrastinating starting my run, let the humidity and temps get higher. I know that I am going to run after walking Bennie, but I have noticed that since it started getting warmer that I take a bit more time between the end of his walks and the start of my runs. Gotta work on getting going a bit quicker, otherwise the humidity and heat will only keep kicking my butt worse.

I did push a little harder on the last mile to keep it in the 9:30 range, I let my ego get in the way of running comfortably and instead running to meet an artificial pace.

Shoes:

New Balance Beacon v1 – They did everything that I wanted today. Although I do have to be a lot more selective about the line I pick when running on the dirt road to avoid the worst of the rocks in them. I just can’t run wherever I want and bash my way onward – the feet would definitely take a beating.

What was I thinking while running?

Political rantings and ravings were the biggest things on my mind – it is an election year and everything is going to be under a microscope – as it should be.

The Black Lives Matters movement and how it is affecting so many of us also took up a lot of space. The bottom line is that I need to keep doing the right things for the right reasons. If I do that the man in the mirror will be satisfied.

Oh yeah, the pandemic and how we have decided to wait out June to see what happens with all the re-opening and protest exposures before even thinking about opening up ourselves. Yes, I know that at some point we will be exposed, but at least by limiting our time out wandering around, we might delay it enough to get closer to the time we have a vaccine or better treatment options than we did initially. Being on a ventilator doesn’t really rock my world.

Progress:

I am staying in the 9:00 minute per mile pace range even on recovery runs and am SLOWLY getting acclimated to the higher temps and humidity. It just takes time. I do notice that I can pick up the pace quicker than I used to even when I am tired at the end of a run – a very good thing.

Despite the humidity and stuff going on in my head, it was a decent run and I was smiling when I finished.