They all can't be "easy" runs.

5.5 miles hood route. New shoes - Adidas Boston 11. I had the old shoes since February, so I was due. 90 deg., 65% hum., 77 d.p.

4 on the hot hot trails

4 on the trails. 1 pm start. 94 deg., 64% hum., 79 d.p., "feels like" 111. 

4 on the trails. Then Spouse's bithday stuff all day, including me getting my first pedicure ever. 

4 on the trails. 92 deg., 71% hum., 81 d.p. "Feels like" 112! For those conditions, it was surprisingly smooth running. Go figure. Must be the new shiny toes? 

4 on the trails. 2 pm. Very hot. Not as smooth as yesterday. Usually my Saturdays are- go run. Lift weights with Tommy. Do a ridiculous amount of yardwork at my house and my parents' house. Today I went reverse order.

4 on the trails after weights. 5 pm start.

I went to Catholic church last night with my parents, because my younger brother's in town from CA. My dad had to go use the bathroom during the offertory, because he's an old guy, but then he got lost on the way back. I elbowed my older brother (because he was sitting on the end, and boxing me in), and he said "What?!" kind of loud. So then I had to yell at him to go get him. He let out a heavy sigh and went to retrieve pops, who then, in turn, yelled at him that he knew where he was going. We were a joy at Saturday night mass, I tell you. Also, I've been saying the same words in Catholic church my whole life, every week, until I got married. For some reason, they have decided to change all of them in my absence. Same prompts from the priest, different responses. I'm convinced this is to make me look like an idiot. 

Then this morning, spouse, the boys, boy #2's girlfriend, and I went to our regular church. Numbers are down. Way down. Like we usually have a decline in the summer, when the snowbirds head north. But this is next level decline. In fact, a good chunk of the sermon was spent on getting people watching on the interwebs to come back to real live church. In contrast to the message, however, came the realization that folks just don't know how to act in church anymore. I don't know if the pandemic is responsible. But we had people talking during the songs and the message. And there were 3 separate phone calls. 1 of those, the person answered, and said "I can't talk right now, Jim. I'm in church." What in the world?! That was in the traditional service. I can only assume that the rock and roll service was worse. Begging people to come back to church, when the congregation is acting up is not good. 

I don't know what this all means, and I'm not an especially faithful guy, but there is a lot to pray about. 

4 on the trails. a few moments of light drizzle rain. 10-15 degrees cooler than normal, which was nice. 

4 on the trails at 11 am. I had that song Sarah! posted the other day - Phobia stuck in my head. Never heard of the band or the song before. The sound kind of reminds me of Muse. 

4 on the trails. then weights with tommy

4 on the trails. For some  reason, I had GnR's Rocket Queen stuck in my head. Not the whole song, just the slow-ish part at the end. Over and over. 

https://youtu.be/mej6bkcNZtE?si=CqYyH3PiZPYy5JYM

then church (the small congregation was much better behaved this week). Then lunch. then honey doos. then weights with tommy. Then watching hurricane stuff for my brother in Venice CA. (To recap: Tropical storm in LA, 5.5 earthquake in Ojai, Tornadoes in San Diego, and then they warned that since it is rattlesnake season, don't go outside in the flood waters. My brother said the earthquake made him nauseous, but other than that, just a lot of rain so far. 

What's next is I guess mudslides, locusts, etc. 

4 on the trails, then 1.5 hood route. And with this run, I pass last years' total mileage. (last year was pretty bad for me.) But still, that's something. 

5 on the trails. Lots of neighbors out there, so the pace was up a bit. I don't want to look like I'm struggling in front of audiences. Dance like no one's watching, maybe. But run like someone is watching. 

on the trails 11 am

trails. pre-storm stagnant soup. 

pre-storm prepping with pop. Boys went surfing. they took the short boards, but it was kind of a long board day. 

watched the storm on the news. not much wind, not much rain. super storm surge though. I've never seen the tides that high. 

4 on the trails. hot, humid, blah, blah, blah. tides are still high. everyone is back to school today.

I know this is a Utah based blog, and I may be the only Gator fan here, and far be it from this Gator fan to trash talk before a game we will surely lose, but I wore my Gator running shirt today. It's been a while. Last year was pretty bad for us. Maybe the only highlight of the year was beating Utah, and that was just barely. Maybe a reasonable goal for tonight would be "not getting embarrassed," or maybe, "it was competative" or "we didn't lose the game because an idiot decided to throw a shoe."