a.m. commute. 5.62 miles, 23:17, 14.5 mph average.

p.m. commute. 5.63 miles, 22:54, 14.7 mph average.

6am Going to be 90 degrees today, so off and running early. Still a bug free run. Deer flies are just starting to hatch so it won't be long before they'll be dive bombing me on my runs. Very pretty, but humid summery morning.

Walking before and after run.

Stretching session too short. In a hurry as usual.

Walking before and after run.

Stretching session too short. In a hurry as usual.

It would be really nice if weed wacking were good cross training for swimming or something.  My arms are pooped!

My legs felt fresh this morning after not running last week.  Too bad my upper body and core feels worn down from the weed wacking session yesterday.  More weed wacking tonight if it is not raining.

a.m. commute. 5.62 miles, 22:23, 15.1mph average.

p.m. commute. 5.62 miles, 24:00, 14.0 mph average.

Trying to be better about stretching. Short session before bed. Not great, but at least it's something.

Warm up: 100y breast, 100y free.
50y free X 4. :59, :58, :56, :59.
100y breast
100y free X 4. 2:10, 2:12, 2:08, 2:12.
100y breast
400y free easy
100y breast

First time swimming since last week's post-swim disaster. I am really starting to feel the lack of pool time. My arms just get so tired and seem to have no stamina. The problem is that early mornings are really the only time I can get to the pool regularly. In the wintertime, it's not a big problem to get to bed by 9pm so I can get up at 4:30am. Now that it stays light outside so late, there are many outside farm chores to do and often we don't even eat dinner until 10pm. Early mornings are tough on that schedule. I may just have to accept my lack of swimming to some extent.

The other weird thing about today's swim was during my final set. I was going to do 500y of easy front crawl to finish, but about 350y into the set, my back started bothering some where I hurt it last week. So I quit the front crawl after 400y and finished with 100y breast stroke. Now why would swimming make my back hurt? I thought swimming was a good exercise for people with back problems. Ugh!

Nice small local 5k race. I took it (mostly) easy because of my back. I say mostly because I passed a guy from the 60-64 age group with about 1/4 mile to go. The last 50 or so yards I could hear his foot steps behind me so I sprinted the last little bit. LOL! I felt relaxed and able to talk and chat the whole run. Pretty amazing that a 9min/mile race now feels easy. I did this same race last year, but some other guy organized the race and the course was just shy of 3 miles. This year, a guy that knows what he is doing organized the race and changed the course so it truly was a 5k. So my time is a little longer than last year's time, but the course was longer this year too, so my pace turned out better than last year's race.

Sue and I ran together until just about mile 2. Then she went on ahead. I was not going to push my pace today. She ended up 2nd in our age group and I took 3rd. Sue's husband took 3rd in his age group. Yay!

p.m. before bedtime. Nice stretch session and using The Stick on my calves and back. Boy did my back feel a ton better afterwards. Good stuff!

Noon. Quit raining long enough for me to sneak in a ride. Breezy, mostly cloudy, muggy summer day. Won't do this route exactly like this again because the section of Hall Rd that is chip sealed is in bad shape. Many other route possibilities though so no biggie.

Why the heck do the replacement dryer belt stores all close on the weekend?  Don't they know that is when most belts break?  And don't they know I need a dryer belt NOW!?!  And why would places like Home Depot and Sears sell dryers, but not the simple little parts like belts?  I'm am not spending $3:10/gallon to drive to the big city and get a belt.  (I was just kind of excited that I figured out how to open up the dryer to get to the belt.  It was simple too!  :)  )

Finally, the results from last week's tri are in.  My race report is done!  :)

Northeast Ohio Orienteering Club. Score event. South Chagrin Reservation. I really like orienteering alot. Too bad I only go once or twice a year. I thought something a little different was in order to cheer me up. I did a little bit of trail running during my 90 minutes I spent on the course. It was hard running because the humidity was like 200% and I had to wear long pants to protect my legs from all the poison ivy. Mostly I walked though. No problems with my back while running, but it's still hard to go from a sitting to standing position. Still taking it easy.

Oh and control point 23 was evil. Never did find the dang thing and I took way too much time looking for it before going on to the next one. That really hurt my score.