A quick stop in while I do some email migration work for a client.

Getting my miles in most days. Sunday morning it was a good day for a bike ride. Got in 31.3 miles. Part of it was on a different canal so saw new things. No car ride today. Adjusted the headlights last night and as I walked around the car I noticed no tail lights. That's not good. I looked at the wiring today and found one wire broke so far. Need to get the proper connector to fix it.

Altair - Since you mentioned exercise equipment part of the new canal went through Chandler and to my surprise there were several different exercise stations there. Looked pretty new as the paint was still shiny. Getting your strength back takes a while. I like the pictures of fall.

AZ, Led, Runwrath - Hi.

Back to work.

Saturday, Oct. 11 - Got the Market to Market done. Got up at 3:45 am so I could park near the finish line and pile into the van with my team members by 4:30. No one was late or missing this year! (Last year our fastest runner called in at 3:30 am with possible covid symptoms, so we had regroup as a 7-person team.) For our first 6 or 7 years I was team captain, and had to organize it all, rent the van, drive, etc. Nice to have no responsibility other than to run this year! Anyway, we drove to Omaha and I, being runner #1 hurried to check in and pick up the "baton" - really a snap bracelet. Got a team pic at the starting line, turned on my headlight and taillight and I was off.

It was 32F, so I was happy to be wearing my fluorescent yellow running jacket for this one.  Stage 1 was 3.4 miles, flat, paved, a suburban trail. It was dark, foggy and a bit eerie with the runners' lights being about all we could see. A nice run, my fastest of the day, unsurprisingly.

Handed off to runner #2, and I could relax while we chased him and the next six runners.  We'd pile out at each exchange point and cheer for our finishing and starting runners.

Side note:  This is a real logistical challenge for the race organizers. They need to know the predicted speed of all the teams and spread them out so that there aren't 650 vans trying to park at the same time at the exchange points. There have to be teams of volunteers directing traffic at each place. They hire a data consulting company do do all the math for timing the team waves.

My 2nd run was stage 9, now out in the country but on a crushed limestone trail.  This was a grinding, 5.6 mile, mostly uphill slog into a light headwind.  Not so fast this time.  It ends, though, with a run across the Platte River pedestrian bridge, which is perfectly flat, probably 1/2 mile long, and scenic.

Noon, and time to gobble down a sandwich, so that I could have time to digest before my last stage.  I drank I think, 4 bottles of water and a bottle of Gatorade during the race (and more afterward).  Getting warm now.

Stage 17 was on very familiar turf, the MoPac, where I do many of my long runs.  Legs not so peppy by now, and I'm feeling a bit of a side stitch.   Ran through it - experience has told me that it will usually go away after a while.  This was 3.9 miles.

Now I'm done, and allow myself to eat cookies and another banana and lots of H2O, while we support the remaining 4 runners.  We do have a final 1/4 mile stage where the whole team makes our triumphant final run over a bridge to the finish line.

Final team time: 12 hours, 26 minutes, 78 miles.  Stayed and ate at the finish line party, then returned the van and drove our captain home.  Long day.

I'll respond to some of your posts later.

Art - 31 miles is a long bike ride! Nice to go on a different canal, makes it interesting! My cousin lives in Chandler! Exercise stations are a cheap way to get fit! Nice to add in a bike ride to the bank. I just got a "retro overtime" check from work, although I've been retired almost a year! I'll follow your example and do a bike ride to deposit it!

Az - Excellent 11 mile trail race, so did you miss hills on the flat prarie course? The dirt roads I run on sometimes have like inch sized stones, they don't hurt my feet, but can mess up my balance if my shoe lands on one. Have you tried using like a circle of moleskin around the blister? That seemed to have eliminated what looked like a corn between my toes. Interesting that the faster runners are often in the longer races! Lucky you to win raffle prizes! When I do the local half I always seem to win something, I wonder if I'm so sorry looking after the race they have me "win" something out of pity! Good you made a new hiking friend!

Led - The Market to Market sounds like it was a fun event! I Tried to find the name of your team in the race results, the Turtles? Well, I magnified the photo and see you were LI-COR and your team was actually a few seconds faster than 12:26:00. Never did a relay, a race starting in the dark or ran using headlights! Interesting with such a long race to go from sub freezing to warm conditions. The planning of the race seems complicated and they were lucky that all went well!

With cold weather season on the way I decided to focus on finishing up most of the yardwork while I can. I had a lot of piles of tree limbs. The cherry wood I cut to smaller pieces and placed in my wood pile. The rest of the wood I've been using to build up the slope from my yard to the woods, which is several feet lower than most of my yard. I have covered part of the piled wood with twigs and then leaf and grass clippings so I can walk over it into the woods. The deer like to lie on the new soft surfaces. I also picked and dried herbs from the garden and put them in jars. I've been mowing the yard and going over leaves in some areas and I started to save a pile of mulch for the spring garden. Today I was clearing some wild grape vines and turned around and a deer was just a few feet away eating the grapes! Guess it has no fear of me! Note the wild grapes are mostly a thin covering over a big seed, not too good for human consumption! One issue I had was the bolt holding the lawnmower blade fell out and I can't find it! I'm using Gorilla tape to hold the blade on, it seems to be working!

Today it was sunny and in the low seventies! I've been slacking on my running with healing from the teeth extraction and the yardwork, but had to do a run on such an excellent fall day! Wore shorts and, for maybe the last time for a while, I went shirtless! I did a 4 3/4 mile loop. Not being consistent for a while I did feel tired by even the less than 5 mile distance, but when I looked at my pace later I did see I was going faster than I thought! Felt good to feel the sun and warmth! This time of the year can often be chilly and overcast.
Stubble left on a corn field and those hills in the background are on the other side of the lake (which you can't see from where I took the picture)

Some horses by a silo and barn

I like to take a picture of one of the roads I'm running on to show you. The trees are still mostly greenish yellow, but just a few have turned red or orange

A big puddle and perhaps two hundred Canadian geese, maybe gathered together for migration?

Another 4.4 miles with exercise Wednesday morning. Pretty much a repeat of Tuesday. Quick garden check and everything looks good. Thinned out the onions and carrots.

Altair - An early Christmas gift from work. Put it to good use. It's nice to see the exercise stations but I wouldn't expect many cyclists to be stopping and using them. Walkers on the other hand would find them convenient doing their outing. Enjoy the nice weather while you can. We all know what's coming.

Art - You're doing good as usual. I don't really see anyone using the exercise stations. Fall can have the best running weather, but the transition to freezing cold can happen quick!

Led - low miles make for good recovery. Nice cat picture! No more cat dreams, but yesterday deer resting in yard all stood up on alert  and were staring at something, we waited to see the source of their concern, a bear, a coyote? Soon a white cat sauntered by! RA has no pace graphs as far as I know, did you mean Garmin? I suppose if I increased the smoothing it would match the Strava graph better. Dental work is not quite done, have two appointments next week! Hunt races are like ones where horses jump over fences and across streams, a Steeplechase is an example. Never went to one, but have seen the horses do go down Main St. during race morning to drink at the bear fountain.

I was looking at my summary and it seems that last Wednesday's run put me over a thousand running miles for the year! Took me longer than Led to reach that, but things happened.

Partly cloudy and  54 degrees at 11 am when I left for my run. Funny to see people in heavy jackets, I wore shorts and a cotton tee. Run included exercises in park. Jogged from station to station. Not much progress, but was able to increase the one where I lift my weight by extending up my arms, before I could do only 3, but today I did 5! My run also included strides. My first attempt to accelerate to a 7mm pace failed, only got to 8:40. On my way back on a slight downhill I tried again and achieved a 6:25mm pace! I only was that fast for a moment and the GPS pace for such a short distance is questionable. Still, it may be fun to see what the Garmin records as my fastest pace. In the last mile of my run a man called me over and said he's been watching me run past his house for years. He gave me advice, said I look down too much and keeping my head up would give better running form. He said I take short steps and thought I should do "skips" at the start of my run, where I step lifting my knees up high. Turns out he is a running coach and recognized me from when I went to school here in the early seventies! He used to play Lacrosse with some of my friends. Temperatures got up to 60 degrees shortly after I returned home. These are ideal temperatures for running!

Here is part of the slope at the edge of the yard I'm building up. Earlier this summer I showed where I had piled logs cut from limbs and branches here. You can see where I cover those with twigs and in the center grass clippings and leaves. The aim is instead of a steep drop-off to the wood to eventually have a grassy slope.

Some more of the exercise stations in the park. Been using this balance bar, walk across several times. Trick is to maintain center of balance over bar and keep ankles firmly steady.

Here is where I rest my forearms and hold onto handles and try to lift my legs up. I still can only lift then a little partway. There are several exercises you can do at this station, but what the white bar in front with the black roller or the round metal stool are for I don't know! 

I assume these dried cornfields will be harvested to feed cattle

This view of Route 390  from an overpass shows fall trees

Silhouettes of trees against the clouds and sky

I did 2 with the dog and 6 solo this morning. I think that's an appropriate amount, considering my HM is a week out.  Temps in the 40s and 50s this morning.

Altair: Here's the RA pace graph (today's run). In the upper right where it says Average __ data points, it seems to default to 15. Change that to 100 and I think the graph is more useful.  And I think Garmin's instantaneous pace on my watch at least, is useless.  I think you are on the right track with your pushing your pace periodically. You probably didn't know how to take it when that guy started telling you how you should be running.  Hope he didn't come off as arrogant or anything. Maybe his pointers will be helpful.  That exercise equipment looks interesting.  It's newer and in better shape than the stations where I sometimes run.  I think we're getting a new set soon in another park in town.  Congrats on getting over 1000!  Let's see, I'm over 1100.  You and I might get 1400+ for the year.  Pretty pictures!

Az  - Hi!!

Others - Hi to you all as well!

Thursday morning did 4.2 miles. Nothing special but felt good getting out.

Friday was a rest day because of early work.

Saturday morning got in 4.4 with exercises before doing some garden clean up before it started raining. Rained on and off through the afternoon. Rain cooled off the temps a little but the humidity went up.

Sunday morning did a 30.3 bike ride doing the Tempe Town Lake route. Turned out there was an Ironman going on so was able to see a little of that. It rained Saturday afternoon where it was a steady rain. Which was nice because it watered the garden pretty good and really cleaned up things by washing away all the dust.

So the rain Saturday night/Sunday morning wasn't really necessary. First because it woke us up. Second was it sounded like a really strong storm that lasted for a while. Third because it made a mess everywhere. It hailed during the storm because when I went out in the morning to check on things I saw a couple of spots where there were still small piles of hail. But what I also saw was that storm shredded the garden. I do mean shredded. The garden really took a beating. Leaves ripped from the plants, lots of leaves with holes in them and a few tomato plants that are just stalks. It will probably be a day or two before I have a good picture of how things will be.

Led - This last migration was the worst I have done. Too many issues trying to move people's email and data from Google to Microsoft. Thankfully it is finished now. Good that your legs felt peppy after the M2M and before your half.

Altair - That white arm with the bar is for exercising your legs. Put the bar in front and push your leg forward. Having the machines present allows you to try different movements to get a full body workout. Individual running stride is hard to determine by yourself unless you can have someone film you while running. Having that person comment on your running, to me, would be a benefit. That someone with some coaching experience actually called you over and offered his advice sounds like he wanted to help. Either that or he was lonely and wanted someone to talk to for a while.  My thought is if I feel good running and nothing hurts it must be OK. If I start to feel something then I think my body is trying to tell me something.

AZ - Looking forward to hearing about the Grand Canyon trip.

Art - Good runs and another impressive bike ride! Nice to see a little of an Ironman! A steady rain is good for the garden, but hail can destroy plants! I'm sure they will come back. You cleared up the mystery of what that bar was for, but don't think I need leg exercises. I think the coach called me over because it bothered him I was not running correctly. What I think is that by running distances we train ourselves to run with maximum efficiency. As I do faster runs my form will change to what seems easier to me. Still, I take any advice under consideration!

Di - Your brother deserves credit for trying to help. I hope you live to see GD graduate and more! We all have goals we want to do before the end. Enjoy life and have a good visit next week!

I've been working on the leaves every day, they are still falling, so it is an ongoing chore. The ones in my yard I go over with my lawnmower and have started a pile to use as mulch come spring. I also have raked up ones along the grass down the road in front of the woods. Those I am using to build up the slope between my yard and the woods. Weather has been in the mid to low fifties, but today it was 35 this morning and only warmed to 48 degrees. This weekend warmer temperatures in the low seventies are expected! Want to enjoy some long runs during that weather!

Saturday we were in Rochester most of the day. Did a short walk to the park after dinner and did some exercises before it got dark.

Sunday I did a run to the park and jogged around and did the exercise stations. I intended to run several more miles, but just felt very tired so just went around the block. About 2 3/4 miles total.

Monday I finally did the bike ride to the bank to deposit my check! Round trip was only a bit over 3 miles.

Tuesday I had a dental consultation in the morning. I have a crown which has to be removed and then she can do several fillings. Good news is none of the teeth will need to be extracted. Later I went on a short walk with GF, but she only wanted to do less than a mile.
At end of walk I took this photo of the orange leaves on this maple tree in my yard.

The forsythia bushes seem to produce a few flowers in the fall, although we think of them blooming yellow early in the spring.

Cloudy at 3 pm today and 48 degrees. My route had me speeding downhill 300 feet passing behind the college campus and then slowly climbing back up! Strava said I averaged a 9:13 pace on a quarter mile segment that was the steepest part of the downhill. I think the strides I've been doing have helped increase my pace, although I did feel some aches in my left calve muscles this week.
More than half finished with my run and going uphill through the campus I pass girls practicing field hockey

Took a break after steepest part of the hill to walk in the campus. Here is Sturges, one of the older buildings

And behind the building Ivy has grown over some windows, the ivy turns red in fall.

Looking down with the valley seen in the distance here is one of the dining halls

And this is one of the student residential buildings with a bright red bush in the foreground.