I got to run with SD2 out to Goodhue, which was nice. Before I found out I was going to run with her I had planned on doing at least 8.0, so I could get my 30 miles for the week. However, with the opportunity to run with Christie, I was not sure of how many I would get in.

I was pretty sure that she wasn’t interested in running that far.

The temps to start were chilly (hats and gloves), with a headwind out to Goodhue Road, so it was a bit harder than usual. We talked a little, but it was more a nice companionable run after the first mile. The pace was right where I wanted it to be all the way out. All I know was that it was nice to run with someone else for a change.

When we were just about to Goodhue Christie said she was doing to stop there for a minute. She had told me several times while we were running together that I could go ahead and that she planned to walk a lot on the way back. So we hadn’t really planned on doing the entire run together from the start.

So I turned left and headed down towards the Pond Road.

I was feeling really good, but didn’t pick up the pace all that much. Along the Pond Road I just cruised along. I knew that I was going to slow the pace a lot coming back up the bigger hills, so I was not trying for any land speed records.

At the bottom of Bartlett Hill, my right heel started to bother, but it wasn’t all that bad, so I kept going, but it continued to bother just enough that I didn’t want to do more than getting an even 9.0 miles just past the house.

When I took off my shoes my right sock had a huge hole in it, so I wasn’t surprised that the right heel bothered. Once I saw how my sock looked, I think I was more surprised that I didn’t have bigger issues with the right heel than I did.

I did get to run longer in the Liberty ISOs and they did just fine. The run would have been even better if my old socks hadn’t gotten that huge hole in the heel, but I have feeling that an old body is probably more to blame for how my feet feel towards the end of longer runs than the shoes I wear. I just have to be willing to actually admit it. 😉

The run itself was not anything special, it was all about putting one foot in front of the other, but it was nice to run the first part of the run with Christie.

Something is going on with WordPress, I am not able to upload photos today? I will add them later.

This morning was the first real frost of the Fall or at least the first one where I had to scrape the windshield before heading out.

After yesterday’s good 8.0 miler where the Breakthru 4s did everything they were supposed to do. I didn’t want to do anything too overly difficult or long. Which meant that today was going to be something shorter and fairly easy.

But first Bennie and I took a trip to Augusta for a walk on the wild side over at Bond Brook.

I finally figured out where the other trailhead was near the bridge and we walked that trail until we got to the service road.

Once we got back to the other side of Tall Pines, I found a trail and we walked back down those trails until we got back to the bridge. We walked for about an hour and now that I have figured some of the newer to me trails out a little better, I will probably head back down there a few more times before the snow flies, only the next time I have a feeling I might do a run.

Speaking of running.

I didn’t get to run until a later in the afternoon, I had to get in lunch, my daily nap, some outside chores and just relax a little. I figured that a nice 4.0 miler would be about right.

Also I wanted to try out the Saucony Liberty ISO’s with a different insole to see how they felt. The Liberty’s feel just too darn firm for me, so I took the Ortholite insole out of my Salomon Sonic RAs and put them into the Liberty ISOs

Now I won’t say that it solved all of my issues with them!

However, within the first quarter mile, I could definitely tell a HUGE difference. I have never had a pair of running shoes feel this different, just by putting in a pair of insoles. They went from a harsh for me ride to a where they were comfortable. The rest of the run was more forgetting about the shoes firmness and just running.

Which gets me to the next issue with the Liberty ISOs, for me they seem to have a particular stride that they work best with and I can tell pretty quickly when I deviate from it. When I am hitting stride in them correctly, they are quiet and smooth, unfortunately, when I am off just a little they feel ungangly and I find myself fighting to get back to the proper stride again.

It might be that I just need to run more often in them, but…

Even so, I ran well in them, enough so that I had my 2nd fastest segment on the flats before Stevens Hill (just a second off my fastest time down there). My times didn’t end up being that fast, but at the same time I wasn’t attempting to run hard, but to run consistently…well except for that segment.

So the Liberty ISOs are a faster shoe, even though they are a heavier shoe compared to others in my rotation. So even though I have to fight to get the “right” stride, now that they feel more comfortable with the changes I have made to them, they are doing well by me.

Which I find fairly funny, because the Breakthru 4s while comfortable are not a shoe that I easily run faster in, they are over an ounce lighter than the Liberty ISOs. Sometimes it is more about how the shoes run, than how much they weigh.

Actually it was a pretty good day and I learned a lot about the Liberty ISOs and the trails at Bond Brook, so I consider it a very successful day

Today was a really great day for my Dad and I.

We made a road trip up above Greenville to let Dad and yeah, me as well…relive, re-visit, remember and retell things from days gone by. We visited a place that has been the locale of many stories that we have and also where my mother’s ashes were scattered nine years ago this week. I may have gotten some crap in my eyes from the wind blowing so hard off the lake.

Once we got to Greenville it started to rain pretty steady, but once we got up to the lake and got out of the van, it stopped raining and the sun tried to come out for minute. Yeah, it was just coincidence. 🙂

However, it is hard to believe that it has been that long since Mom died, but it has. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was talking with her, getting her advice or perspective on something that I was thinking about doing. I still miss her more than I will ever admit.

Another reason that we went up there today is that Dad’s health is not great and he doesn’t really have a lot of hope for any improvement going forward. He is doing better than we ever thought he would with all of the health issues he has, but as he said today “Everyday I wake-up, its another great day.”

He is a tough old Bastid, but he pretty much admitted that he thought this would probably be the last time he gets to go up there alive. I tried to dissuade that line of talk, but he is a realist and knows himself better than anyone else. Plus what I am seeing each time I go up to visit…well we will see.

While riding up we talked, Yankees (he’s a big fan) / Red Sox (I’m a big fan), Patriots, some politics, and remembered things. But mostly, I simply listened and I think that is what he wanted more than anything – he wanted to talk. He kept talking and I learned a lot about things that I thought I knew about, but like they say I got the rest of the story – at least from his perspective. 🙂

Up at the lake, we talked some more, had some quiet time together. Then I needed to take a walk to collect my thoughts and he needed time to himself with his wife, his emotions and their memories.

After leaving the lake, we talked some more, stopped for lunch in Greenville and drove home. The conversation was more of his memories of how he grew up and the people in his life. The two hour trip back to his house seemed to take about half the time it took to get up North.

Neither one of us are overly demonstrative kind of guys when it comes to showing emotion, but we hugged, told each other how much we loved one another and I think I might have gotten something in my eyes walking back to the van.

At that point after driving around for almost five hours and being on emotional overload for most of it, I needed a run.

So I headed over to Newport parked at the Hannaford and ran around the outskirts of town.

It wasn’t a fast run and that isn’t what I needed, I just wanted to get out move around someplace that I was very familiar with. I grew up on those streets and as I passed places that mean something to me, they took on a different look after talking so much with Dad earlier. Especially when running by my Grandparents old house and the house I consider my home over on Elm Street.

After that I still had to drive home. I put over 270 miles on the body today and by the time I did get home I was spent emotionally and physically. However, I believe that it was one of those days that I will remember for the rest of my life and I think that my father enjoyed the day as well.

Whatever time any of us have left on this little blue marble, I believe we need to remember what is important and that life is not always easy or even fair, but it is what we make it, based on the choices we make each day.

Today, I made a pretty good choice. 🙂