To a great pair of shoes.
Today I retired my hardest-working shoes, a pair of Brooks Glycerin 15s that gave me 620 great miles and no injuries. And the uppers are still intact, and the bounce is still there, but the outer tread is no longer safe for running, so I have retired them to casual wear duties.
They have of course been added to the Hall of Retired Shoes.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Thursday, January 25, 2018
The bridge over the Rubicon
Do you have a spot close to the end of your normal loops when you just run out of all motivation to keep on going? Mine is this little bridge intheWashington Plaza complex in Lane Anne, Reston, VA. It doesn't mind if I am on my 10th or 15th mile, but the second I cross that bridge I lose all motivation to keep running. I even have a name for it: the bridge of no fucks given.
Part of this is that the bridge is a forced speed bump. If I am coming from the green trail (the right side of this picture, across the bridge) then it's a forced 90° turn, over a hump, and it can be slippery. If I am coming from the top of Waterview Cluster it is a dangerous downhill sidewalk, immediatelly followed by the bridge's bump. And as soon as you cross the bridge that's a 90° turn into a constant stream of dog walkers and the groups of local residents that walk around Lake Anne on most mornings. It's almost a chicane turn, so most times it's easier to just lay out the route so I can get my mileage finished right as I hit the bridge, and I can justify stopping after I go across.
Part of this is that the bridge is a forced speed bump. If I am coming from the green trail (the right side of this picture, across the bridge) then it's a forced 90° turn, over a hump, and it can be slippery. If I am coming from the top of Waterview Cluster it is a dangerous downhill sidewalk, immediatelly followed by the bridge's bump. And as soon as you cross the bridge that's a 90° turn into a constant stream of dog walkers and the groups of local residents that walk around Lake Anne on most mornings. It's almost a chicane turn, so most times it's easier to just lay out the route so I can get my mileage finished right as I hit the bridge, and I can justify stopping after I go across.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Stockholm Syndrome and this week's weather
From Wikipedia:
Right as we are all getting used to this ridiculous cold, but we were blessed with mostly clean sidewalks, roads and paved trails, seems like we are going to get a nice coat of ice over the whole damn town overnight.
I never thought I would get annoyed at seeing the temperature go above 18°F. It borders on the ridiculous.
Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity.I keep thinking about this as after so many days of ridiculously cold weather, running under negative windchill and getting icicles on my friggin eyebrows, I was actually annoyed at seeing the temperatures climb a hair over melting, right as a god damn freezing rain storm is about to hit us.
Right as we are all getting used to this ridiculous cold, but we were blessed with mostly clean sidewalks, roads and paved trails, seems like we are going to get a nice coat of ice over the whole damn town overnight.
I never thought I would get annoyed at seeing the temperature go above 18°F. It borders on the ridiculous.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Thursday, January 4, 2018
The Bomb Cyclone
Running conditions were gorgeous as long as you stuck to the paved trails, which had a nice blanket of powdered snow. The sidewalks were OK until the plowing started. The brick on the Reston Town Center was terrible, so were the RTC grid streets, mostly due to shitty plowing.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Icicle run
This thing with the cold is not even funny. It's about 11 degrees warmer than yesterday and it is absolutely dry.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
A day late for Strava Badge Grind Day
"Strava Badge Grind Day" is usually the first of the month, I always try to knock out the 10K and Half-Marathon badges on the first of the month, but with the negative wind chill factors on New Year's Day I chickened out and didn't run.
And spent the whole day suffering terrible cabin fever.
Today it the wind chill was -4°F but I decided to let the 10-minute rule play out.
The 10-minute rule: if you don't want to run, go run for 10 minutes and decide if you want to turn around home or keep going.
I was nervous about the trail and sidewalk conditions, since my normal 15-16 mile route has a large amount of sidewalks that I can't avoid. 10 minutes would be plenty to figure out if the sidewalks and paved trails were a lost cause, in which case I could either turn around and go back inside, or switch to one of the local street loops that will give me 6-10 miles on very low traffic streets.
Lucky me, the sidewalks were mostly clean, and the trails were at least 85% clean, and almost no black ice, most of the ice was very visible.
And spent the whole day suffering terrible cabin fever.
Today it the wind chill was -4°F but I decided to let the 10-minute rule play out.
The 10-minute rule: if you don't want to run, go run for 10 minutes and decide if you want to turn around home or keep going.
I was nervous about the trail and sidewalk conditions, since my normal 15-16 mile route has a large amount of sidewalks that I can't avoid. 10 minutes would be plenty to figure out if the sidewalks and paved trails were a lost cause, in which case I could either turn around and go back inside, or switch to one of the local street loops that will give me 6-10 miles on very low traffic streets.
Lucky me, the sidewalks were mostly clean, and the trails were at least 85% clean, and almost no black ice, most of the ice was very visible.
2017 summary video, courtesy of Strava
Here's the final version of the 2017 video. I had posted a preliminary version that was missing two days worth of data.
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