Monochromatic Outlook

Tomor­row I plan to be run­ning in the Statu­to Race in North Beach so I don’t want to over­do any­thing today. Yet I did­n’t want to let anoth­er day go by with­out get­ting out on the road at least a lit­tle, as the last cou­ple of days I haven’t run at all. So that pos­es a dilem­ma: how to do some­thing chal­leng­ing enough that there’s some fun to it while avoid­ing wear­ing myself out with a rel­a­tive­ly long dis­tance? I … Read the rest

Fatigue is a fun­ny thing. Some­times it’s hard to tell when I am actu­al­ly fatigued and when I sim­ply think I ought to be fatigued. Cer­tain­ly when I got to the top of Potrero Hill with­out stop­ping I was breath­ing hard and hap­py to start back down­hill even after only a half mile, but I did­n’t con­sid­er stop­ping. Even as soon as a mile lat­er there was some­thing in me telling me to stop. I played the usu­al tricks on … Read the rest

It’s fun­ny — and kind of a shame — how see­ing a «dead end» sign will dis­cour­age me from using a street even when I’m on foot. I say it’s a shame because here in San Fran­cis­co there are so many hills too steep for auto­mo­biles where there are nev­er­the­less steps to allow pedes­tri­an access. The result is that I’ve lived in Potrero Hill now for almost five years (on the Hill for half that and in Dog­patch for the … Read the rest

I’ve com­bined two walks here, one to the start of the DSE Run­ners Mis­sion Bay 5K today and the oth­er back home. I was­n’t quite sure how to han­dle it because the next report will be about run­ning that hap­pened in the mid­dle of this walk. It seemed sil­ly to have three runs logged for one trip out, but I def­i­nite­ly want to keep my race entries separate.

One nice thing about this walk is that for the way … Read the rest

It’s been over a week since I went for a plain ol’ run. There were walks, a bare­foot excur­sion and some rest days, but I haven’t been run­ning. I have been rest­ing some over­ly tight calves but that does­n’t make me miss the run­ning any less.

It’s nice hav­ing GPS to keep track of my route. I used to plan my runs out in advance and not vary from the path lest I lose track of my mileage. With the GPS … Read the rest

Can today’s walk count as train­ing? Well, of course it can, and it does. I chose to walk as my pri­ma­ry trans­porta­tion today, so even if most «train­ing runs» don’t include a stop for piz­za and a nine-inning ball game, well, that just means most peo­ple don’t have quite as good a time when they train as I do.

I was invit­ed tonight to see the Giants play the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als. Of course, such an oppor­tu­ni­ty is not to be missed. … Read the rest

This was my first bare­foot run on pave­ment. I went only a lit­tle over a mile so as not to avoid what I’ve read is the biggest mis­take: TMTS, oth­er­wise known as Too Much Too Soon.

Obser­va­tions from this short run: con­trary to what I would have guessed from tra­vers­ing both kinds of sur­faces in shoes, side­walks are smooth and soft in con­trast with paved streets, which are jagged and unfor­giv­ing. I also found that in bare feet maybe it is … Read the rest

I went in to the stu­dio today for a few hours. On the way out it was a gor­geous day. I wore shorts, san­dals and a short-sleeved work shirt over a tee shirt. I thought I was overdressed.

Just four or five hours lat­er the sun is still out, the sky is still clear, but there is a wicked wind com­ing in from the West. I was wish­ing that I’d worn long pants and a jack­et. You can pick your … Read the rest