58F w/ low clouds. Easy/moderate run. What a change this weather is from my runs in Leavenworth. (more about that below). A pleasant moderate paced run (~9:50) in the refreshing moist, cool air. I had two runs on vacation, both begun before sunup to avoid the heat and to get back on time for the incredible breakfast. Tuesday's was a fantastic 9.5 miles on highways and back roads around the town, much of it following the marathon route. (I ran that one a few years ago and it was pleasant to see the area again.) The air over there is quite dry compared to here. I don't consider Puget Sound to be excessively humid, especially compared to other parts of the country I have visited, but Eastern Washington is really like a desert in its air quality. Very dry. It made the heat later in the day a lot more tolerable (~95F in the shade). The temperature while I was running was in the low to mid 60s. I saw tons of wildlife on both of my runs. Only one deer, mostly small creatures: many types of birds (finches, blue jays, a flock of Canada geese, and several whose names I don't know), rabbits, chipmunks, and a mama squirrel who was trying to stuff her baby into a bird house hole. Also saw lots of horses, sheep, 3 goats, cows and a longhorn steer.
On Wednesday, I had my second run, which was quite a bit shorter than I intended. I was going to run the same 9.5 mile loop and add mile repeats at half mar. pace, but I woke up feeling utterly tired. It was no wonder... Tuesday had been an "easy" run, but I was actually within about 30 seconds of marathon pace for much of the run. Then we all went on a trail ride after breakfast. In the afternoon I spent over an hour swimming and jumping around in the pool with my daughter, and we were up late for our concert. Sooooo, plan B for Wednesday morning: recovery run. My whole body seemed to scream "slow please!" But that was the run when I saw the most wildlife, so it was quite pleasant too. Later in the day (hence the sunlight) I took two pictures from the car of some interesting sights from my run. The first is some kind of tower - what can that be? It was even prettier in the pre-dawn light, as if I had stumbled into Scotland or something. The second is this yard full of gnome statues -- many, many more than are pictured here. If you are going to have gnomes, you might as well go all out. The last picture is a little tiny ornamental grass that was in many of the potted plant mixtures by the doors to various buildings in the resort. Those little white seed tufts were so soft, it was like having a cat in a plant. Does anyone know the name of this little guy? Weed or ornamental grass, depending on your point of view, but I have forgotten what it's called.
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