It is a definite life change, and I need to slowly figure it out. The house is quiet and too big now, but they'll both be back for holidays and other vacations, and we'll visit NH and FL as well. My guess is that holidays and family vacations will be even more special to me going forward, just the same as ski trips with Mark and off-season running with Matthew will be. On with the blog ...
Monday: 6
Local roads. Last run with Matthew for a while. :( Hip did not feel good today. After 6 miles run at easy pace, Matthew had planned out a few strides (which he did), but my body said I'm done.
Tuesday: 6
Hampton Beach, NH. Helped Matthew to move into his dorm, get his ID, and get him to a team XC meeting. Stayed busy during those processes, and then it was late morning and we were done. Now what? I had the day off, and didn't want to go home yet, so we had lunch in Durham, and then went to the beach where I ran a mix of roads and beach. Pensive run before driving back to an empty nest in RI.
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| Car fully packed. In retrospect, I should have put the cargo box on the car. |
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| A little cramped for the ride to NH. |
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| At Matthew's dorm. Why am I the one pushing Matthew's stuff uphill? Is he laughing at me? |
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| Matthew's dorm room until May. |
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| Taking a pic, as we probably won't be allowed in here again until move-out day. |
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| Dropping him off near Wildcat Stadium, before heading home. |
Wednesday: 10
2nd annual Stonington XC 5K. Got there early to meet up with Tom to mark the course and setup for the event. It all went well, but it was disappointing to see the participation in this free XC race decrease from 112 finishers in the 5K down to 66, and the majority of the 66 coming from the Westerly High School XC squads. We knew going into this we likely only had a lot of the runners last year because we held our end-of-summer youth awards ceremony there so we had kind of a captive audience, but probably didn't figure in that it's a busy late summer week for everyone with several other races on the docket as well.
As for the race itself, I ran 20:36 this year as compared to 19:19 last year, and I'm OK with a minute off given my recovery (hoping most of it is injury / lack of running related anyway, although some may be due to a year older). Last year I was in 6th with my 19:19, and this year in 2nd with my 20:36, but again, that's because a lot of the competition dropped off. Tommy was way out in front and once he turned off onto the trails, I didn't see him again. I had gradually passed a few high schoolers, and being the same competition I ran against at Wahaneeta just a few days ago, expected them (especially Colby) but it didn't happen. Colby finished 15 seconds behind me in 3rd place. Fun race.
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| Start of the race. |
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| After a lap plus on the track, leaving the school with a few WHS XC runners in tow, headed towards the fields. Colby in orange just behind me. |
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| Running field perimeters before entering the trails. |
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| One lap to go (running outside lanes). |
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| Finishing up (inside lanes). |
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| We made the bibs more interesting this year. The pond is on the course, as you run around it. |
Thursday: 5
Noontime barefoot run at Old Town Beach, followed by a dip in the ocean before headed back to work.
Friday: 5
Schonning 5K. 19:57. Yikes. This race was my undoing, and I'm pretty sure I know why. It's really not that complicated. This was my 4th race in nine days. Probably not a good idea ever, but especially not when I'm recovering and my PT has asked me to gradually ease back into it. I don't want to write up a race report on this one. I can't report my splits because my watch wasn't working, but looking at Strava splits of people around me, my guess is I ran about 6-flat for Mile 1, and 6:40 - 6:50 for Miles 2 and 3. Just ugly.
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| While I don't think it was as horrible as whatever awful face I'm making, it was a painful finish for sure. |
Saturday: 0 run, 1 mile swim!
Both my body and my ego are still bruised from last night's Schonning 5K fail. I know I need a day off from running, so I took it. Slept in and then headed to Watchaug Pond for a swim. I swam my usual 1/4 mile out to the red buoy, but was feeling really good so I kept going, and picked other objects out to sight and follow. I try to raise my head and sight my target every 5 strokes, and this works well for me to stay relatively on course and adjust slightly as needed.
When I got back to the beach, my watched showed 0.8 miles, so why stop now?! Still feeling good, I saw in the other direction to Camp Watchaug and back. One mile swim! I know to "real swimmers", one mile is laughable, but I hadn't swam this far since 2015 (Rhode Warrior Half Ironman) and I was really happy and feeling good about it.
The part that was weird was finishing my swim, raising my head and body out of the water and finding people in robes singing in a foreign language. What is going on? Fortunately, they were engrossed in their activity, so I didn't seem to infringe upon them. When I came out of the water, I asked one beach-goer what was going on, and he told me it was a wedding. Hmmm. Walking back to my car, one of the celebrants had separated from the pack, so I told him I was curious as to the ceremony. In heavily accented English, he told me this was a baptism (not a wedding!), and that they come down from Pawtucket twice a year to perform baptismal rites here, as they don't have such a place in Pawtucket. No, I don't think they would!
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| This was not the picture, of course, but it was very much like this with people in the water signing from books, except wearing robes. |
Sunday: 9
Long run at Burlingame with Tommy. Fortunately the hip/nerve pain from Friday is completely cleared up. We met up at 6:30am and ran Rhody in reverse, plus tacked on trails to North Camp. 55 degrees! Fun catch-up, ending with a swim in Watchaug Pond.
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| Between the fog and zoom, I know this pic isn't clear. On the way to meet Tom for a run, at the end of my street, I see this coyote carrying home its prey for breakfast. It has something with a furry tail in its mouth. At first I thought it was a squirrel, but when it turned slightly, I could see the body was much bigger than a squirrel. A neighborhood cat? Small dog? -------------- Two days later there are signs up in my neighborhood and surrounding areas that their small dog is missing. Hope it's just a coincidence. |
Weekly synopsis: Other than me stupidly overdoing it with racing too much, it was a good week overall. Trying to follow PT plans of building up a base of 30-40 miles, and then holding there and re-evaluating. It's working so far.
Weekly highlight: One mile swim! Was so happy with this. I've been loving swimming lately, maybe because it feels so good and always pain-free. I want to keep it going as cross-training, but once the weather gets colder, don't know if I'll have the discipline to swim in a pool. I so much prefer open water.
Weekly lowlight: The empty nester "syndrome". It's all natural and I'm happy for both boys for their independence and successes, but as with any life change, it will take some adjustments and getting used to.
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