Half an hour for me, half an hour for my homies

Heart rate doesn’t lie, right? At least, that’s what they tell us.

A week ago, I swapped out my old, non-whiz bang heart rate monitor for a younger, snazzier, curvier model (this one here, in fact). It’s a bit on the chunky side, but it doesn’t spike high every 2 minutes like my 6 year old one, and it does laps. Swam with it on Wednesday, in fact. I’m pretty much satisfied. If it lasts a year or two, I’ll be happy, even.

So I split from the office this afternoon just slightly early (which was offset by working just slightly late a couple of other evenings last week), and swung by the North Kingston rail-trail, which I hadn’t seen in a while. I was thrilled to see a lot of folks out biking on the trail, and at least one mom running behind her son-on-training-wheels. Made me want to boogie on home.

Good podcasts to listen to and great weather – in the mood to run. So I did. Warmed up to the mile 0 mark, and hit the split button. HR about 130, just barely aerobic. Cranked it up. Tried to figure out the new graffiti – black paint on blacktop doesn’t work really well.

Mile 1 – right at 8 minutes. Hmm, not sure where that came from. But, I’m sure things’ll even out. Mile 2’s slightly uphill. Wow – under 8 minutes, HR right around 150. Mile 3; mile 4 – same story. Finished the 4.2 in just over 33 minutes, with less than 1 minute over 158, which is theoretically 85% of Max for me.

Then it was time to go fulfill civic duty – our church was hosting the Groton area ecumenical blood drive this time around. I stopped and did the frat boy shower (soap and washcloth in the sink, topped off with deodorant) at the CT Welcome station on IH-95, then rolled into St. Andrew’s right in time for my appointment.

As a side note, can I say a huge note of thanks to people who work flexed hours in services? The Red Cross had pushed the hours for the drive from like 2 to 6:30, giving folks like me a chance to fit it into my schedule. Ditto the good people at the Groton Public Library, who, most weeknights, remain open until 9 PM – I can get the kids in bed and actually have a little time to browse myself, so our weekend trips can focus on the kiddos. And I cannot thank the folks at the Y enough – if I can get up that early, I can swim at 0530, or as late as 2130.

After having pie, I stuck around a bit to help pick up chairs, etc, and shoot the breeze with the pastor, who’d just gotten back from a run. Wish that I had half the energy of that guy, and a fraction of his compassion and empathy.

So that’s pretty much it. Whoever ends up with my pint’s gonna get to enjoy a boost of endorphins, I hope. Glad to share. Good end to a great week.

BTW, can I just point out here how much inspiration y’all give to me? Even though I couldn’t make it to beantown, meeting Lower Case Jeff, riding with Warren, and hanging out with the CT RBF rocked. I think I’ve talked my wife into running Bluff Point in my stead (“Your marathon friends aren’t going to make fun of me if I just do the 3.6 mile race, are they?” she asked. The beauty is the number of cases in which we can look back and see that that’d never happen.) But the goodness isn’t just up here:

– Angie set a PR and married off some running friends in a canyon
– Jon managed not to eat himself into a coma after going back on the brown stuff following Lent
– RunninTurnip has a great opportunity to get new wheels (but we’re thrilled she’s safe)
– Lance Armstrong is going to follow in my footsteps for a change and run NYC in November
– And Mark is trying to extort cash from us in exchange for compromising pictures.

Apologies to those I’ve left out. Great things are afoot at the Circle K, boys and girls.

Great Things