Tag: Pinellas Trail

5/24/20

I got my new vest and new headphones this week. Ran with the new headphones on Friday, and was pretty happy overall. Jabra headphones don’t mess around when it comes to bass. That Friday run was a half hour after work thing, just relaxing and cruising. Today I ran 15 at 11:00 minutes a mile with the new vest. I’m very happy with the choice I made. No more bruised ribs. Just have to get used to pocket placement but no big deal.

A theme at work for me this week was just to stop caring. Not about the quality of work I do, but about the little, annoying, extraneous things that I can make too much of. It’s like I want to have a fistfight with time — the concept, or construct, or very real thing which rules many (most) people’s lives including mine — over not being home earlier. I can’t care about it when I’m at work because it makes me super anxious, like wound up tight, and it’s another challenge in itself to get unwound. So maybe not such a little extraneous thing, but annoying to be sure. And things plural I said. I love my job because of the people I get to talk to. That’s one reason. But sometimes my interactions while working are very difficult to process. I take it to heart when someone displays even the slightest amount of negativity towards me and/or the quality of my work. That Abraham Lincoln quote though, especially with over 600 people to please. What running blog? This is about work today.

Continue reading “5/24/20”

6/10/18

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I think I will always be a trail runner first. Then a runner.

I lost the concept of time today out there. I forgot about the job search. I got rid of all the bullshit. Yeah, this happens when I run at home, just not to this degree. I’ve been reading Run Gently Out There by John Morelock, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from emulating Morelock’s style and voice right now. Not only would I fail at his game of botany, ornithology, phenology (a word I learned from him), and poetic prose as one stream of thought, I would be betraying my own style and voice (still in development stages). So, this is turning out to be a paragraph about writing rather than running. And that’s good. Because, I can only use my own two feet to run, as much as I pretend I can run as fast as someone else or as far as someone else. And, I can only use my own words and my own voice to write, all the time keeping in mind those who influence me and inspire me. Right now, everything running and writing is all mixed and tangled together. Like it should be.

I started on the wrong trail. I realized I was on the wrong trail after three minutes, when I didn’t see any white blazes. I’m lucky it only took me three minutes. I backtracked to the trailhead for a clean start and pledged to keep an eye out for white blazes from then on. Continue reading “6/10/18”

5/26/18

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After the run today, instead of getting directly into a cold shower, I went out on the back porch and just sat in the rain. It was a slow, relaxing rain at first, but then the Ice Cream Truck came by playing its song, and this was somehow dramatic, a cue to the rain for more intensity. As the music faded, the rain seemed to slow. Then the wind started blowing harder, and the little palm by the big oak tree started thrashing. For a moment after all this had happened, was still happening, I looked down at the pavers under my feet and just observed the rain drops coming down. So peaceful. And the skies then opened up and poured out the last big bucket of rain for that hour. Continue reading “5/26/18”

5/16/18

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I am exhausted. I waited until 11:30 to go running today because I had to wait for the maintenance guy to get here. He’s still not here, but that’s another story. I’m so tired because I went hard yesterday and today it was just gross outside. It was sprinkling at first so it was easy to feel like I wouldn’t overheat. It stopped, though, and it got sticky, gross and hot. I ran the first 6 miles and had to run/walk the last 4. Overall, 10 miles at 9:50 pace. Continue reading “5/16/18”

5/9/18

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Continuing from yesterday’s entry, I did indeed purchase a personal ($4/month) WordPress site plan. It came with a domain name that doesn’t include .wordpress, which was the only selling point, honestly. I’ll probably be messing around trying to figure out how to use it for a while. I’d like to create something that looks halfway decent, as I’m not trying to showcase my design skills, or lack thereof, but when I look at this site, I want to be invited in by something visually appealing at least. It’s something to work towards for sure. And it’ll get me taking more photos.

Today’s run was good. I usually do what I call a tempo run on Wednesdays. Maybe other people have different definitions of tempo run, but mine is a half mile warm-up of just easy running, not super slow, but a pace I’m able to talk through easily, then at least half an hour of slightly uncomfortable pace. I’ve been doing 8 miles on Wednesdays for the past month and today was no exception. Overall, I went 8 miles at 8:21 pace, negative splitting. I probably could have pushed more in the beginning of the run, but after this past weekend, I wanted to finish strong rather than burn out. I wore Lunartempo 2s. No water bottle. No dehydration today, most likely because I got out before the sun was really baking. Continue reading “5/9/18”