They all can't be "easy" runs.

5 miles on Venetian Waterway Park x 2. Finished right before sunset. Wonderful lack of humidity and low dew point. At the end it was 66 deg., 67% hum., 54 d.p.

I committed to the Ragnar in early Decemeber. It will be a 4 man team. Which means I will have something like 30 trail miles over 6 runs in 2 days. I can do that, right?

Same deal as yesterday. 5 miles on Venetian Waterway Park x 2. Finished right before sunset. At the end it was 70 deg., 76% hum., 62 d.p.

2 on the trails. then 3.5 hoodroute. 

5 miles on Venetian Waterway Park. Finished right before sunset. I would have run more, but I ran out of daylight. 

Daylight savings is stupid, and must end.

5 miles on Venetian Waterway Park. In the morning. I paid the price for poor food choices the night before. 

16.25 miles. Hood route to Legacy Trail to Circus Bridge and back. With Camelbak. 73 deg., 68% hum., 64 d.p. Overcast with no visible sun for the entire run.

Longest run since 4/16/23. 94 miles until I reach the equator in logged miles goal. Why run this on a Thursday? Who knows? 

2 on the trails. then 3.5 hood route. Legs felt fine after a half mile. 

Then lost some time repairing Boy #2's car. Boy #1 is a welder, and has created a network of young blue collar guys. I totally didn't see this coming, but now I have go-to guys for auto repair, plumbing, HVAC, etc. I've lived here off and on since 1983, and in this house for 20 years. And it took my son to connect me with these experts. It's really great how these guys help each other out. 

9.9 mile run fail. I went out to do 12.9. I made it to the turn around point for a 10.2, knowing things did not feel right, and just kept going. At the turn around for 12.9, I realized I wasn't going to have a geat day running, so I chose an alternate, and shorter, run home. My left knee felt wonky throughout. Full sun. 83 deg., 72% hum. 70 d.p. did not help, either. That's okay. Tomorrow is another day. 

8 miles. Hood route to legacy trail over the SWOM bridge and back. 46 deg., 38% hum., 22 d.p. at the start of the run. That's right. The temperature dropped almost 40 degrees in 2 days. This got me to thinking - At what temperature could I say that I thought it was cold enough to put on gloves, and then I would no be mocked around here? I have no real experience running in the cold, or even cool weather. I'm sure most of you have numbers in mind that would require you to suit up differently.

Anyhow, there's supposed to be excellent surf for the next 2 days. I'm sure my brother is going to pressure my boys into going out. 

Happy Veteran's Day.

8 miles. Hood route to legacy trail over the SWOM bridge and back. 72 deg., 51% hum., 56 d.p. Not my best week of mileage lately.

10.2 miles. Hood route to Legacy Trail to Colonia and back. 80 deg., 47% hum., 56 d.p. I tried to explain the plot of the movie "Magnolia" to my son yesterday. He's considering placing me in a mental facility. 

5 miles on Venetian waterway park. Decent weather. Then I hung out and watched boat ramp hijinx from across the waterway for about 25 minutes.

5 on the trails mid morning

2 on the trails @ 5:30 pm. Then, because of stupid daylight saving, 3.5 hood route miles. 

As I was sitting at the picnic table, watching the boat ramp last night, I was thinking about this Ragnar race that I am officially signed up for now. I was thinking that this race is going to be different than anything I've done before. Every race I've done - the gun goes off - I run until I cross the finish line - race over. This race will have multiple starts. And how should I train for it? Since the race is basically (3) 5-ish mile trail loops, 2 days in a row, the best way to prepare, I figure, would be to run (3) 5 mile trail loops, 2 days in a row. I should do at least 1 of those runs after dark, with a head light, so that my first time running trails in the dark with a head light is not on race day. 

I don't know what I'm doing. But this plan seems specific to my race, and would be better than, say, 8 road miles a day until race day. You wouldn't prepare for a hilly race on flat ground. I'm just trying to replicate what I've committed to do. I'm the oldest guy on the team by 8 years. My goal is not to be the slowest. 

5 on the trails - 8:30 am

5 on the trails - 12:30 pm

5 on the trails - 6:30 pm. Experiment with running with a head lamp that I used for fishing 12-ish years ago. I tried it a bunch of different ways, but it is kind of bulky and the elastic is shot. I got the best results when it was wrapped around my hand. When I was running in sand or shell (white surfaces) the path was clear. Things got a bit tougher when I was running on grass or pine straw. I've got 16 days to figure this out. 

5 on the trails - 10:00 am late start. I then wasted too much time talking to the shirtless tire dragger. Getting 3 runs in today is going to by challenging. 

5 on the trails. I saw a very large bobcat on mile 1. - 4:30 pm. 75 deg., 85% hum., 70 d.p.

yeah, I'm done for the day. I'll try again tomorrow. 

5 on the trails - 9:00 am 80 deg., 62% hum., 65 d.p. I broke 1,200 miles on the year. I saw a Bald Eagle up very close at the start of the run. Later, there was a woman walking the trails in flesh colored spandex. At a distance, with my bad vision, I thought I was looking at something different. 

5 on the trails - 3 pm 75 deg., 66% hum., 73 d.p.

With this run, I have logged 24,901 miles (the equator) since my first logged run (3.5 miles on 2/28/10.) It took me 15 years, 8 months, and 23 days. Which is roughly 1,586 miles a year, or 132.45 miles a month for 188 months, or 4.34 miles per day for 5,744 days on average. 

I realize that jtshad has done 2x the equator in the same time it took me to do it once. But I still think it is a pretty cool benchmark. 

I was at something that was described as a football game between the Gators and UT, but I saw no evidence of that. 

5 on the trails. 8 am. On mile 1, a guy climbed out from under the bridge on the path, that is maybe 8' long. Never saw that before. He was wearing a vest and a hard hat. He said "Just getting a water sample". Dude, from under the bridge? 

5 on the trails. 3 pm. 

5 on the trails. 5 pm. There was another runner out there that made me run faster than I wanted to. 

5 on the trails. 7:30 am. 72 deg., 87% hum., 68 d.p.

5 on the trails. 1:00 pm. 82 deg., 56% hum., 65 d.p.

5 on the trails. 5:00 pm.

1 pm: 2 mile run fail. 

5 on the trails at 9 AM. Happy thanksgiving. I saw the shirtless tire dragger out there. He's thinking of changing the race order next weekend. We are scheduled to run (6) 5-ish mile loops each, in order. He is considering changing that to (3) 10-ish mile loops each. On the one hand, that would greatly increase the amount of time between runs. On the other hand, I've been doing multiple 5 mile runs daily for the last couple of weeks in preparation for what I thought the race format would be. Not crazy about the last minute change. 

5 on the trails. 2 with the shirtless tire dragger. 50 degrees at the start. 

AM: Back to Gainesville. Gators beat FSU. Or, Jadan Baugh beat FSU. Another good day with Spouse. 

3 on the trails. 2 pm start. I was trying to knock the Gainesville off me.