They all can't be "easy" runs.

9:30 am start. 90 deg. 65% hum. 76 d.p. 1 on the trails, where I ran into Isaac (the super disciplined tire-dragging obstacle course racing guy) and his wife. I talked to him way too long. Also, they were having some major thing at the soccer fields (not a tournament, it was more like a photo shoot), that I go by once per lap. So I gave up on the trail running and did 5.5 miles, hood route, full sun. I may never stop sweating. 

5 on the trails. 

0.8 around the block miles. then 10.2 miles, hood route to legacy trail to colonia and back. 1st 4 in 31:13. 11:30 am start. it rained super heavy this morning. light rain at the start and finish of this run. Red tide is awful right now. I live 3ish miles from the gulf as the crow flies. If I'm outside longer than a half hour, my nostrils burn like I have been huffing ammonia. 

I have so much "not running" stuff in my head lately, it is tough to enjoy runs. Every moment I'm running, I'm feeling guilty about not tending to all of the other stuff in my life. On the other hand, the other stuff in my life is kind of taking over, so I'm not seeing any gains in running right now. It's kind of a bummer.

For example, Tommy (Boy #1) passed his driving test yesterday. So he's driving all over venice today. He's doing a good job of checking in with me, but is it ever enough for the parent? 50 years ago this month spouse was born, and so was Disneyworld. She was one of the first people to go to Disney (and I'm guessing, one of the youngest). So today, she is at Disney with Boy #2. I have stuff going on at work, dealing with my parents, an uncle put in an old folks home (with out of state cousins complaining), things breaking at home, on and on. I just can't seem to focus right now. 

1.2 around the block miles. Then 7.5 miles. Hood route to legacy trail and back. In 1:01:14. Then 0.8 around the block miles. Drizzled throughout. Construction near the turn around made me have to cross laurel road twice, which may have affected my time slightly.

3 on the trails at 12:30. 

6 am start. 20.75 miles. Hood route to legacy trail over circus bridge to caspersen Beach and back. Hot and red tide-ey. 83 Deg. 78% hum., 76 d.p. My shoes were making squishy noises by mile 6.

10.2 miles. Hood route to legacy trail to colonia and back. 7 am start. 86 deg., 75% hum.,  77 d.p. sweaty sweaty.  

It's a really long story, but I couldn't start my jon boat yesterday. And that has taken over my thoughts lately. It is hard to compartmentalize failure. Just because I am having a very rough go of it, in this one area of my life, doesn't mean all things are falling apart. This boat has represented a continuous failure in my life for a really long time. It's just one of those things that is difficult to laugh off. Once something like that gets a hold of me. ... Well, I wasn't really thinking about running this morning. 

Spouse's 50th Birthday

1st day of school. Boy #1 drove to school. Boy #2 will need to take a bus home. 

6 on the trails at 10:30 am. 90 deg. 65%  hum. 75 d.p. "Feels like" 101.

6:45 am start. 0.8 miles around the block. Then 10.8 miles Hood route to legacy trail to colonia and back. Because of construction, and schools reopening, I had to run on the north side of Laurel, which caused me to have to go over the SWOM bridge twice. I measured out the distance change, and that was an extra 0.2 in each direction. So that's why the miles are different today. I had Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears For Fears, and Just Like Heaven by the Cure running trough my head this morning. 

6 on the trails at 2:30 pm. 5 minutes after I got home, the rain started. 4 snakes on the trails today. Whenever I see a bunch of snakes out there,  I think of MC Hammer's Pump it Up (there are some snake-related lines in that song). Man, that dude could dance. 

Week recap - Spouse's 50th birthday Monday, Boys finally back to school Tuesday, Spouse tested positive for the CV and we pulled the boys out of school Wednesday, So now we are all quarantined Thursday. Tropical Storm on the way this weekend. Life is a dream. 

Oh yeah, 1 month until race day. I'm super stoked. 

6 more on the trails. 84 deg. 82 % hum., 78 d.p. Despite the "brisk" weather, the running kind of felt nice. 

So continuing my week of fun, We got an e-mail yesterday that boy #1 has already missed an assignment. This morning, Boy #2 had one of his braces wires pop. We can't go to the orthodontist for a while. So, I'm going to have to rumage through the garage for some tin snips, I guess! 

20.75 miles. hood route to legacy trail over circus bridge to caspersen beach and back. Weather was slightly better than last week. so this should have gone better. Nope. I ran out of water with 4 miles to go. The finish was a real battle of wills. Oh, and my neighbor was out riding her bike on legacy trail when I had about 5ish to go. Always good to see poeple you know when things are going bad. So what I've learned from this marathon buildup is that I can run for 2 hours at a pretty good clip, and then I've got nothing.

4 weeks to figger it out. 

6 on the trails. surf is up to 2 ft. The kids want to go surfing, but there is soooo much red tide out there. 

I took Tommy out in the afternoon. The beach was packed with surfers. Tommy got some good rides in, but the red tide stink was overwhelming for me. Eyes burning, sneezing, coughing. When he got out of the water, his entire belly and chest was red-chafffed. I'm like "Aren't you worried about something that kills all these fish swimming up your urethra while your out there?" He may never recover from hearing me say "Urethra"!

Me at the walk in clinic this morning: Yeah, I need to get covid tests for me and my sons.

Them: What symptoms do you have?

Me: None, other than my wife tested positive last Wednesday.

Them: Well, we're only testing people with symptoms.

Me: My wife told me you would try to send me somewhere else. I need a negative test to send these guys back to school.

Them: I'll check with the head nurse - she walks away - comes back with a piece of paper with other testing sites on the paper (exactly as my wife said she would, BTW). and says, the head nurse says we're only testing people with symptoms.

Me: I have to drive to North Port to get tested? All of the places on your list have a 3 day turn around on results. Since they are eligible to go back to school on Thursday WITH NO TEST RESULTS, what is the point of getting tested at all?

Them: You wouldn't have got our test results until tomorrow anyway.

Me: No Crap! We weren't eligible to get tested until 5 days after exposure, which is why we’re here today. I have certainly learned my lesson - I have 2 options: 1. Lie to you and tell you we have symptoms, so we can get tested, or 2. Ignore CDC recommendations and get tested IMMEDIATELY after learning of exposure.

Then I had to go home and explain to Spouse why we couldn't get tested. 

I am watching my kids get lazier and dumber.

6 am start. 1/2 mile out, then home for a bathroom stop. then 10.8 miles, hood route to legacy trail on north side of laurel, over the SWOM bridge to colonia and back. Started rough, finished strong. Super duper hot and humid. 

10.8 miles. HoodRoute to Legacy Trail on north side of Laurel over SWOM bridge to Colonia and back. hot and sticky, but nice running today. I did accidentaly cause a cyclist to wreck, though. we were passing by each other on the same 4' wide sidewalk. I guess he thought he couldn't safely pass me, so he went in the grass. after we passed each other i heard him wreck behind me trying to get back on the sidewalk. I ran back to see if he was okay. i think his pride was hurt more than anything else. he was an old guy- late 60s i'm guessing. 

In non running news -

1. all 4 of us tested negative with home kits last night. The kids go back to school tomorrow. I am still quarantined from the office and off site visits until the 26th (my company protocols are different from the school. I work from home now anyway.) the boys and I never tested positive. 

2. the boys surfed for 3+ hours yesterday. small but consistent waves. they had a really good time. I went to see them at the end of it. It is amazing how similar that red tide symptoms are to COVID symptoms. 

3. Took the boat back to the mechanic yesterday. Good news I had wrongly assumed that my inability to start the thing waas due to my own incompetance. I found out that my frustration was all from a loose fitting gas line connection that was installed at the last minute by the mechanic. No gas to the engine = no running engine. I was so happy to find out that I wasn't as dumb as I thought i was, that i actually tipped the mechanic for his error. (Which is also dumb. So I kind of went full circle on that one.)

10.8 miles. Hood route to north side of laurel legacy trail over SWOM bridge to Colonia and back. 6:30 am start. I had a collection of songs from Pete Yorn's music for the morning after album stuck in my head. 

4 on the trails. 8:30 am start. Wisely avoided conversation with overly talkative tire dragger guy. 

20.75 miles. hood route to legacy trail over circus bridge to caspersen beach and back. Hot and humid.

I met a guy named Dan at halfway. 60 year old. nice dude. He asked if I swam across the ICW. Yes, I was that wet, but No, I did not. Most of our talk was about the Sarasota County School Board meeting last night. Regardless of where you stand on the whole mask or no mask thing, that meeting was chaos. The school board member that was in charge of the rules of order was only there through a computer, so she could not get the room to follow the correct procedure. Further, The school board decided that any time there was an outburst from the crowd, that they would take a recess, essentially putting the parents in "time out." I was not there, but the whole thing just makes me feel ashamed for our community. 

In happier news, Boy #1 and I started the boat and ran it to snake island last night and back. He did almost everything by himself, including hooking up the trailer and backing the trailer in. his first time backing a boat in! On the way back, it was super low tide. Since I have been running a boat up and down Curry creek for the last 35 years, I have a pretty good idea where the deep water is. So I had to instruct a little bit in that regards. But it was mostly Tommy. Big smiles on that kid last night. Today, I go out with Boy #2 for the same drill. If I'm satisfied that they know what they are doing, I might send them out later without me. Happy times. 

1 on the trails. then 7.6 miles. hood route to legacy trail north to mission valley bridge and back. super hot. 86 deg. 76% hum., 78 d.p. Still sweating a half hour later.  I had intentions of running yesterday. but it was a very full weekend. Running, 3 boat trips, etc. I overslept sunday, did a ton of yardwork, and then went to bed early. 

Amyway most of my run this morning was spent thinking about how I always tell these corny stories about what I experience out there. For example, when I was on the trails this morning, a woman that had little control of her 2 big dogs was walkng towards me. Under normal conditions, that person would have said something along the lines of "sorry about the dogs." "they wont bite." or something to that effect. But that's not what she said. Instead she went with "you have nice form." Which is,....odd. Of course, I yelled back 'Thanks!" like the doofus that I am. 

And then I spent the rest of the run thinking - You know who tells a story like that? Burt. Burt would tell a story like that. Burt's stories are always like -  I waved at someone I thought I knew but then it turned out not to be them and then I waved again when I saw them because i think we are now friends. I read these things and think "has this improved my life in any way?" And now I am doing that to all of you, as well. Is my running blog elvolving into Burt-ness? Is this what we are all doing here? Connected running stories and non-running stories in some sort of Burtvolution? To a destination of Burtopia? 

1.2 around the block miles. Then 10.2 miles. hood route to legacy trail to colonia and back. 1st half 43:10, 8:28 pace. Then 0.8 around the block miles. 78 deg. 91% hum. 76 d.p.

6 am. 3.5 hood route. 

11 am. 5 on the trails

1.2 around the block miles. Then 10.2 miles. hood route to legacy trail to colonia and back. 1st half 43:49, 8:35 pace. Then 0.8 around the block miles. 78 deg. 82% hum. 71 d.p. 5ish degree lower D.P. was noticeable. 

5.5 miles hood route. 6:20 am start. My pace kept picking up accidentally. 81 deg., 90% hum. 77 d.p. I have no control of the songs that play in my head. https://youtu.be/PSoOFn3wQV4

0.8 around the block miles. Then 16.25 miles. Hood route to legacy trail to circus bridge and back. 2:23:28. 8:50 pace. Given it's still August in Florida, the weather could have been worse. It was overcast. There was something like a breeze at the start. But there were also random pockets of red tide stink. Not as fast as past versions of me, but a pretty good run today.

3 on the trails. Then 5.5 miles hood route. Stupid hot. I rounded a corner on the trails, and heard an old-timey phone ring. I know some people have their cell phone ring tones set up that way. I did not immediately see the person. but I saw a bike on a kickstand. ....okay?... Then I saw a moman with a big smile on her face sitting on a large pile of Saw Palmetto fronds. Do you know why they call it "Saw" palmetto? Good guess. The petioles of the palm fronds are serrated, like a steak knife! I knew I couldn't stop myself from asking this lunatic some questions, so I decided to go run the hood route for the remainder. 

3 footers at the north jetty. I'll probably be taking the kids surfing later. 

https://www.surfline.com/surf-report/venice-jetties-north/5842041f4e65fad6a7708b15

1.5 Miles hood route. Then 6 on the trails. I saw my old neighbor out there and talked to him for a while. 

I just went back and checked. 260.5 Is my biggest month of miles, ever. It is 12 days until race day. All those miles don't exactly make me feel ready. Also, per standard operating procedure for inside 2 weeks to race day, I am trying to convince myself that I am injured. My right hip feels weird..... must be injured.