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I’ve been making a concerted effort to get my butt out of bed earlier to support working out. It’s the least I can do to make sure that I get home from work at a reasonable hour so that my lovely wife gets some personal time in the evenings. But this weekend was a bust, what with fallout from the hurricanes socking New England in rain from Friday through today.

Chris from Mass (as opposed to my running buddy Christian) was a) out of bed before 5 AM, and b) on an epic run through the woods of Massachusetts Sunday morning while I was dreaming I wasn’t such a slug.

I startled deer all over the place, one of which was just beautiful to behold. I saw red-tailed hawks slowly beating their path away from me. I actually felt bad, because I doubt he really wanted to move in all this rain. I heard a weird swamp noise that sounded like a woman screaming and then being drowned. It was eerie, but when I heard it twice, I figured some animal had a wicked defense system. Would’ve kept ME away.

Good on him.

Sorry, it’s not RSS, but Atom’s (AFAICT – as far as I can tell) XML based and compatible.

Check it here

Hey, just a periodic reminder – there’s a lot of folks out there who need blood on both an emergency and a periodic basis, and there’s only one source for it – you and me.

Find a drive near you here.

(BTW – if you can’t give, you can hug a donor or volunteer to give out cookies)

Props to Lafe for both kind words in a comment yesterday, and for stick-to-it-iveness (Wow. Spellcheck would hate that) in his trek back to shape.

I’m going to be blogging in a much more catch-as-catch can style, to this is a two-fer post:

Yesterday, I sat through a necessary but tedious meeting – information dense but not intellectually stimulating, and was feeling completely disconnected at the end. But, it was a sunny, windy day, and I’d defensively packed my gym bag, so I figured “WTF, let’s go run.” Swung by the gym, popped on shorts and shoes, and hit the road. For whatever reason (most likely it being on top of the clean pile), I’d popped in an old OCS (officer candidate school) t-shirt. Selected Paul Simon’s “Graceland” on the BRAND NEW 40 GB iPod (have I mentioned how much I love the iPod in general, and the new one specifically, and how cool it is to have every piece of music I own in one place?), and hit the road.

As I’m coming around to the smaller basin on the base, I notice there’s a whole string of folks wearing Marine Green ahead, finishing a group run for their senior enlisted school. One of the cool things I learned from Drill Instructor Staff Sargent Hyler, United States Marine Corps, down in Pensacola, was never to let a straggler run alone. Well, these folks were doing the same for their comrades; each person huffing had someone barely breaking a sweat running alongside, giving encouragement (helpfully, not shouting). I passed the first one about a half mile from their finish. About 100 yards later, the encourager sprints about 15 yards past me, then pulls up and goes back to the person he was pacing. Pass another about 300 yards from their finish, and about 10 yards later, both are sprinting flat out past me to the finish.

With the iPod, I couldn’t hear anything; my guess, though, was that the shirt sparked at least a little bit of inter-service rivalry, and a little bit of inspiration for the other service in the Department of the Navy. (For the record, one of my proudest moments was at the end of OCS when Drill Instructor Staff Sergant Hyler, United States Marine Corps, had put us through our last set of push-ups, had us gasping and standing at attention, and said “Now, you all may wear Navy Blue, but every time I look at you I’m going to see a little green Marine”). (And also for the record, when I’m struggling, I can usually get an extra half mile from bringing up the vision of Drill Instructor Staff Sergant Hyler, United States Marine Corps, running alongside me, shouting invectives at me with combination coffee/cigarette breath and spit and sweat flying)

Pshew.

This morning, I was Christian’s 6AM man again, but was kind of spent after yesterday afternoon’s run, which turned into what (for me) was a mini-epic. So we knocked off the mile to where Chris usually pauses for a walk break, and walked about another 2 miles. Kind of nice to watch Newport wake up and stretch the legs out. So as a run it was a failure, but it was good for the soul.

(Would have been better, but neither of us brought cash along, so we weren’t able to succumb to any of the places we passed offering coffee and bagles)

Life has finally caught up with me, and I’ve had trouble finding time to blog. (it was a choice – running or blogging, and running won out. Sorry).

In any case, there have been quite a few decent runs in the last week. Nothing like the Running Chick (who continues to be one of my heros; check out her survey of blogging runners if nothing else), but it’s been good.

8/2 – Had to catch a plane to San Antonio around noon, but managed to wrap up last minute items at the office and sneak in 3 miles or so before heading to the airport. I was proud of that, and even showered so I didn’t stink up the plane.

8/3 – Knocked out about 4 miles from the hotel, all in a straight line. Running in Texas is different than running in New England, to say the least. I was on the road just as the sun crested the horizon; on the way back running into the sun, I thought I could actually feel the photons pushing against me. I could definately feel the heat start to reflect around me.

8/7-8 – Worked my butt off on the swingset in the back yard. I’ll post a photo later, but I’m counting moving approximately a ton of lumber as working out.

8/10 – Ran with Christian for the first time in a while. Heard a funny line on Law and Order that night.

So, yes, I have been slacking a bit, and beer and mexican food in San Antonio did bad things for my waistline. But I’ve felt better on the road. Another run with Chris tommorrow, and hopefully some time on the bike on Friday and Saturday.

Hope everyone else is enjoying summer as much as I am.

Melissa kicked me out of the house to go ride Saturday Morning. Wow. I love that woman.

Anyhow, I decided to go ahead and document the ride because – well, because I could.

Sticky is the operative word today. Not hot, but plain old straight up sticky. Hot might even have been preferable.

I headed down into Old Mystic, and started channeling Bob Roll again. “They’re in for some decent hills again today,” he said. “Oh, crap,” said I. There’s a hill just on the south end of Old Mystic that I’ve been avoiding. It starts near an old 1789 house that’s for sale, and climbs up and up. I was pleasantly suprised to find the boat below in a yard just at the base of the climb:

Fins. Like a Caddy. Wow. Just wow. Bobbke was in full force, and he and I were less than 3 miles out.

This, by the way, was the bottom of climb:

Yeah. Not only steep, but twisty. Not 21 turns of l’Alpe twisty, but not bad for no drive to hit the start of the ride. The view from the top, looking west, is below. Did I mention I love living near hills, even though they are kind of wimpy in the grand scheme?

Climbing this one heading east from Old Mystic is the way to go. It’s steep, but it’s not wicked long. The west-bound approach (coming from Stonington) isn’t that steep, but it’s super long. While I was flying down here, I could hear Roll “He’s out in front, but if he wants to stay there, he’s going to have to ride that bike like it’s stolen…”

This is the train depot in Mystic. Not really ride related. But I’m pretty pumped to live in a town with a real train. Everywhere else I have lived had nice stations, but hadn’t seen a train in decades. Well, ‘cept for Battle Creek – got to see Reagan’s ’80 whistlestop tour behind the library in downtown. But I was still in elementary school.

The drawbridge, however, was ride related:

I was about 4 cars back when the gates went down to let this boat through (I liked, btw – looked like efficient hull; there was more of a wake from their dinghy). But all the cool cyclists head up to the front of the line, so the first across the bridge get to wave at the folks who were held up on the other side first.

Last bit was this dory – I’ve been watching it for a while, and just really like the lines:

Sorry, forgot about these fellas:

They’re on the river road, and randomly cross, holding up riders, joggers, walkers, adn cars. At least they’re tasty.

To hook another nutmegger up:

1) How long have you been blogging about running?

Here – for a couple of months. But on my circle of friends blog, I’ve been posting about running for about 15 months. I moved the running to this page since the other was getting a little more political. I’m a Reagan conservative (no wishy-washy compassion attached) with a pretty wide libertarian streak; most of my buds are pretty liberal in the good, old school sense. I wanted to be able to keep this from getting lost in the wash. Running transcends party lines. I also didn’t want to bore them (Though there are a couple of other runners – Becky and Matt did the Austin Marathon again this year.

2) What was the first running blog you stumbled across?

Sean Lloyd’s site

3) What made you seek out running blogs in the first place?

Inspiration. When I was an instructor at Sub School in Groton, it was great to have about a dozen guys with whom to run on a regular basis. When I got out of the Navy and moved into the real world, no-one in my office in Houston ran (or would publicly acknowledge it – sports involving sweating or alternative transportation are kind of taboo in the land of the interstates). Moving up to New England made road sports much safer, and I was able to con a friend into running with me, but it’s nice to keep up with others.

4) What is the best advice you’ve been given thru your blog?

Keep at it.

5) Do you feel that the running blogs (yours and others) have helped you in your quest to become a better runner? If yes, please elaborate.

Yes, if for nothing but the encouragement. Let’s face it – the key to becoming a better runner is “Wake up, slap on shoes, pound out miles, wash, rinse, eat, sleep, repeat.” Knowing that there are others out there repeating the same process is priceless.

Stopped on Jamestown Island and rode again on the way into work. Wow. Just wow. Every turn’s another water view, and there’s enough small rollers to make it a really good workout. There’s also extremely light traffic, and very nice shoulders on most of the island’s roads.

The wildlife was out in force – I almost hit so many rabbits, I lost count. Then there were two deer, and even a coyote at the entrance to Beavertail State Park. Don’t know why, but they always make the ride better.

The best is that I parked both today and Wednesday at Fort Wetherill State Park and was able to take a quick dip before heading to the showers. The Atlantic’s a cold, cold ocean this far north. Bracing, to say the least.

Christian and I headed out early this morning, rather than doing the traditional lunch time run. We left from his house, headed south from the bridge along Newport harbor, through downtown, and then went up the hill at Memorial, turned around and ran back.

Chris is still working on pacing somewhat, and I kicked off at a too-strong pace, mostly because he kept hanging on every time I sped up and wouldn’t tell me when I was going too darn fast, or fall off at all. Add that to the fact he’s got long wheels, and I’m sucking wind immediately.

Eventually, we settled down to a reasonable pace, and had a great early-morining jog. As I rounded the hill to head up Memorial, I look up and see another runner a block ahead of me. Darn – small dog kicks in, despite my efforts to stop it, and I catch her just as we get to the last block of the hill. So in order to avoid looking like an jerk, I have to turn, run to the next block, and turn again instead of just turning around and running past her again.

Good run. Felt great despite the double ride yesterday.

I was a complete and total slug last week. Didn’t do squat.

Today, I was back with a vengence. Jumped on the bike and did 10 miles on Jamestown Island on the way to work. Phenomenal ride. I parked at some state park that used to be a fort on the east side of the island, just south of Jamestown, and rode to another state park that used to be a fort at the southwest end of the island. Beautiful, small rolling hills, lots of ocean views. Very nice. The best part was a long false flat on the southbound leg. I was able to sustain almost 30 mph for the better part of 2 miles, and for a brief instant hear Bob Roll in my head saying “Jankowski is flying! Must be driving towards the beer at the other end!” (Yes, going the other way sucked). But nice early ride.

Then, on the way home, I parked at a soccer field just off 138, and rode the north half of the island. Minor gripe – the map indicated that the road the parking lot was on cut all the way across – in actuallity, there was a resevoir and 138, so I had to add an extra 4 or so miles.

(Wah.)

I’m still grinning.