the big move

hi friends,

i’ve managed to run three days a week during this Uberbusy time and i just started doing some speedwork of sorts. i won’t be running the half this year but i think the cowtown half is very do-able. it’s also got more hills than the half does so when i crush the two hour half goal it will be that much sweeter.

this is the weekend for “the big move”. we are moving out of the office we have occupied for 16+ years and are moving our practice home. i’m looking forward to the many advantages of working from home and not being in the building our office is in with *those people*, the newest tenets who are on the other side of the wall from us.

i’ve been reading some blogs and commenting some and trying to keep up.

happy running!

time flys like the wind…

i have been so busy/pre-occupied! here’s a short recap: we decided not to move to springfield, missouri, but didn’t know if we wanted to stay in our current house because we had so much space we weren’t using. we kept the house on the market and kept sprucing it up. then the answer came: keep the house and move our massage practice into it. we even have enough space to have a room to work with training clients in and an extra treatment room. poof! the next phase of a business is born. we start working from home on october 2nd. now for running.  i’ve been running about three days a week on average until three weeks ago when i went to two. that will start the week after next. my goal race is still the half and i will run it in under two hours, god willing and to enjoy most every run. i’ll use a program that gail leveque wrote for me last year. i haven’t read a blog for weeks, so off i go to do that. happy running!  

Opinion, 2

i think it’s amusing,  in a “don’t you have anything better to do?” sort of way that there are studys of how male sweat affects a woman’s sex drive.  here are some comments from newsletter readers.  it doesn’t seem like male sweat is turning too many women on.  go figure…

“Different strokes for different I guess.  I find it arousing for my man to come wake me with hugs and kisses in the morning after he’s worked out.”

“Interesting article… You know, some “studies” just don’t make sense, especially when there are too many variables OR when not enough significant “like” data can be nailed down.  Sweaty men … nope, never done anything for me.  On the other hand, men coming out of the ocean or pool … now THAT’S sexy!”  (her italics).

oh, running. ran 9 miles on sunday morning with susan and cindylou. we all started together and ran a couple of miles while chatting. i ran on when they turned back for the parking lot at 2.5 miles. i love this hot weather training here. i really do!

happy running, amigos!

Opinion?

This is from my newsletter this month. 

I recently read a small article in a health mag about a study done at Cal State Berkeley that I was curious about. The study states that an ingredient in  ”male sweat contains a distinctive scent that prompts a change in women’s hormone levels”. What is this magic ingredient that ”induces sexual arousal and brain activation in women.”? Androstadienone. The study tested women’s levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, after smelling a “musky-scented test liquid”. The findings: ”…Improved mood and significantly higher sexual arousal plus a rise in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing.” My sweat must be deficient in androstadienone because it matters not if I’ve run, worked in the yard or painted the house, my wife won’t come near me when I’m sweaty (“go away, you stink”). So, speak to me loyal readers, is there any truth to this? Has the sight of “soccer players fresh off the field, construction workers on a hot day, the buff gardener mowing the lawn” made you think you want a trip around the bases? Tell me if it’s so, if this really worked…for somebody.

Running:  ran 6 miles with susan today, then bleachers with calisthenics after.

Happy Running! 

Look what I found

this morning the weather was terrific. i don’t know what the temp was but it felt cool and humid with no wind and light rain. While my run was slow, it was a good, honest effort with a one mile warm up (10:30), a mile at tempo (8:37), one mile recovery (10:55), 2nd mile at tempo (8:59) then a ten milute cool down. i feel like i’m running just for general health and fitness and to maintain the conditioning level i have. that’s ok and very worthwhile. the half is out there and seems like such a long way off, but will be here before i know it.

while out trimming back the climbing roses, which have gone berserk with all this rain, i found this guy, a baby dove, waiting for mom to return with breakfast (and for me to get the heck away from the nest).  i’d like to move the yard with us too. 

 here are a couple more pictures of the latest grandson. he’s three weeks old in these pics. 

Happy 4th!

 Father forgive me, it’s been a long time since my last post.

The Lake Grapevine Runners and Walkers had their 1st annual 4th of July 10k fun run today and it was exactly that. No race numbers, beer at one of the aid stations, champagne at another, hot dogs and cold beer at the finish. It was a well run event and all who participated had a good time. my time: 1:03:05. I walked through all the water stops, chatted with lots of people and didn’t wear a watch. it was really fun.

For most of the month of June, Dianne has been in Springfield helping out the kids and getting her hands on the newest grandson Ben. We both really like Springfield and ever since the kids moved there, we’ve thought about moving there. So, we put our house on the market last weekend and are now setting our sights and hopes on relocating. Our house is unique, which is a another way of saying its overbuilt for the neighborhood. The yard is quite different than the standard urban landscape too. Seven years ago we took out all the turf and replaced it with native and adapted plants that don’t require water in the summer (not catcus and gravel and not nessessarily low maintainence, lots of wild flowers, native grasses and flowering shrubs). If we could, we would transplant the house. We’re envisioning a buyer knocking on the front door saying, “This is the house I saw in my dream last night! Can I please buy it?” More on this enterprise as things progress. There are lots of things to do.

 Happy Running!

wafting fingers of aroma

it was kinda ( but not really very) wierd this morning to be running along in the damp street quite a good distance away from the houses on that street, when i was all but acosted by the strong smell of… not car exhaust fumes, not the vent hood from macdonalds…no! it was DRYER SHEETS!  the smell lasted about 3 or 5 seconds, then about when i realized what that out of place smell was, i had moved on. has this happened to anyone else?

training for the half in november begins soon.

happy running! 
 

almost two weeks

today is day 10 being in the house by myself.

how do single people do it?

i can, and do, cook for myself (bachelor fodder).

there are no dust bunnys to name, no crusted plates with a forks stuck to them scattered around, no piles of Stuff in the sink or on the floor,

the bathroom is good,

really

i just seem to be working all the time and i have this nagging hollow feeling

that when i get home no one will be there, and… well

on to running: wednesday i ran on the trails around the south side of grapevine lake with the lgraw crew. it was soooo huuummiiid. mercy! there hasn’t been a breeze around here all week. i ran with a woman who was alot stronger runner than i, but she had already been running for an hour and let me set the pace. i ended up with 5.5 miles. tuesday was 4 miles with the last 3 being at a heart rate of 90% max. i’m not sure of the pace, but i think (hope)  8:45-9:00 min mile. got good running work done on saturday and sunday last too, but no significant long run in a couple of weeks.  that’ll change soon enough.

i haven’t been posting much, but teaching has been juicy and work has been good.

thanks for the birthday wishes and…

                                        happy running!   

june b’days

happy birthday to all the june birthday people, especially d and susan and all you gemini folks.

dianne is visiting kids, grandkids in springfield, mo.

the birth of another g-child – ben. 9lbs5ozs24inches.

(!) she had a toddler.

i’ve been teaching most of the week, not sleeping or running much,

i don’t seem to do either very well when dianne is gone.

happy running!

out in the rain

sunday dianne and i started out together for what we thought was going to be a nice long run; hers for an hour or so, mine for just past 90 minutes. it’s been raining almost every day here for the last month but we didn’t figure it would rain on us. it did. alot. after running east about 20 minutes dianne looked behind us (to the west where the really strong storms come from) and said, “oh, that’s thunder. hey, have you looked behind us to the west?” i look… and think to myself, its pretty far away and hopefully it won’t be that big or strong. the entire western horizon is dark and foreboding. i say, “yes i have” and shrug. well…

i chose to run out further and she headed back for home. enter heavy, torrential  sheets of rain, strong, whipping winds and lots of thunder and lightning. also enter my first opportunity to be afraid that i might get struck by lightning if i tried to run back home (3 miles) or to all those great places to wait out the rain that i ran by 5-10 minutes ago. i waited under a tree against a fence which was out of the wind, but not the rain. fortunately it wasn’t cold.  the dripping dianne was waiting it out in a gas station about .75 miles from home and got a ride from a kind lady. i called a little while later from a little store and she picked me up. there was something oddly exhilarating about being exposed to the power of nature standing there under my tree.

i don’t anticipate doing that again, hopefully ever.  dianne wasn’t to upset for leaving her in the rain, either. hey, if we lived in the northwest, wouldn’t we run in the rain pretty often?  well folks, does this make us real runners now?

happy running!