Weekly Log 8-Apr to 14-Apr-2019

Miscellaneous ramblings:

• Can someone please solve the robocall issue?  I'm now getting 2-4 calls on my cell phone everyday, and it's really annoying.  I never answer anymore unless I recognize the number, but some still leave voicemails warning of my impending doom (criminal proceedings against me are about to start, my computer is virus infected, my gonorrhea tests came back positive, yadda yadda ...).
• Felt just a tad odd going to watch a Westerly High School track meet, where for the first time in six years, none of my two sons were running.  In fact, early in the meet, I received a call from my brother, and after I told him where I was, he asked, "Um, didn't your kids graduate?!"  Funny.  However, I still know most of the runners, and a number of parents and coaches for both Westerly and Chariho, and thus it was enjoyable to watch the meet and catch up with parents and coaches.  Hope I didn't creep anyone out (that is, anymore than I usually do).
• I'm so glad I write my blog every day now.  It now only doesn't take long (often just a few minutes), but as I reread it now on Sunday night, I had forgotten already what I ran on Monday and Tuesday.
• Best one-liner I heard this week:  Stormy Daniels has just filed her income taxes, and she reported her monies received from Trump as "gross income".

Monday:  4 run, 600 yard swim
AM:  Today was our first Back Road Ramble committee meeting.  With the meeting at Arcadia Y at 8:15am, I had planned to get up there about 6:30am and go for back country run on dirt roads.  Woke up at 5:30am to heavy rain.  Nope, a 10+ mile run is just not happening.  I'm actually surprised I got out for any run, but I did get up about an hour later than planned, and ran 4 miles on local roads.  Mid-40s and steady rain; just felt miserable.

Noon:  The whole day ended up dreary and raining or at least drizzling.  Went to the Westerly Y at lunch for a swim instead.  600 yards.  Felt OK.

Tuesday:  5
Late afternoon run at Wahaneeta and into Woody Hill.  Similar to my last run here, the only person I ran into was ex-marathoner Tom Beattie and his three dogs.

Wednesday:  13
AM:  8 miles.  Local neighborhood roads.  I made up the run as I went along (sometimes the best kind), trying to pick as many hills as I could here in relatively flat Westerly (although Matthew reminds me Westerly is actually hillier than Durham, NH).  I got a grand total of 419 feet of elevation, so this is great mountain training for something like Loon Mountain race, with pretty much the same elevation gain and grade, right?  Oh, wait a minute ...

PM:  5 miles.  Lunchtime run at Grills, Westerly side of preserve.  Zero humans encountered.

Thursday:  15
AM:  9 miles.  Blue Heron loop in Dedham and Boston, MA.  This loop has so much terrain variation that it keeps it quite interesting for me:  single-track, a little bit of road (normally a turn-off on a trail run, but cool to me crossing the "Entering Boston" sign, and there are zero road-crossings), marsh boardwalks, and trails along the Charles River.

PM:  6 miles.  Arcadia's JB Hudson trail to Breakheart Pond, around the pond, and then Shelter Trail and single-track on both sides of Breakheart Brook.  Even nabbed a CR!

Unfortunately, today was Mean Dog Day.  Right near the pond, four unleashed dogs surrounded me in a circle and growled and gnashed at me.  Really quite frightening, and I had to wait for their owner to arrive and diffuse the situation.  What did the owner say to me?  Not a thing!  No apology!  I didn't utter a word myself, as I was kind of shocked at how quickly it transpired while simultaneously honestly a bit afraid.  There really is little upshot in verbal confrontations anyway.  I ran the rest of the run in fear that I would encounter them again, but fortunately I did not.  I find it so unfair and disheartening that a few irresponsible dog owners can ruin it for others.

Friday:  6
7am run with WTAC board member Justin Pearce at Grills.  He had the week off from work, and asked if I'd show him some more local trails.  Sure!  Easy run from Hopkinton side into Westerly, and then short loop on blue trail.  Good way to start the day.  I hope he felt the same.

Saturday:  6

Used the rainy morning to go through and clean out boxes
of old financial records in my basement, and bring them to a free shredding
event my employer was having.
---------
This box contained records I had accumulated and created from the
estate of my great-aunt (I was the executor).  The process was
not made any easier by the fact that she had accounts at nine
different institutions and had at least eight beneficiaries at varying
percentages.  At any rate, she passed away in 2003 and I was
overdue in getting rid of these and other records.

Burlingame Campground trails.  Waited until the afternoon when the rain stopped.  With some heavy overnight rains, some trails were wet, especially the bog bridge trail on NST.  I quickly stopped trying to find tiny rocks and logs to awkwardly jump on and just ran through full bore.  Mudfest!

My trail shoes were gunked up with mud and soaking wet;
might as well take advantage of a big puddle near the end to
get them cleaned up before getting back in the car.

Saturday night we went to Cranston to have dinner at a dim sum place
that we like, only to find it closed for remodeling.  Now what?
Just "around the corner" was a hole in the wall joint with a dubious name
of "Uncle Sushi".  I was a little leery, but Jana walked right in and it was
quite good!  Very reasonable prices (maybe due to the atmosphere) and
I was very surprised to find my sushi dinner come with eel!  Saved the best (the eel!) for last.

Sunday:  11
Tillinghast Pond and Nicholas Farm Management Areas, West Greenwich and Coventry, RI.  Tillinghast has got to be one of my favorite trail systems around.  Very well marked, multiple "you are here" maps, and a really good mix of terrain, from pine-needle covered trails to deep in dense young white pines to open meadows, to steep climbs along a river, and even a few rock gardens, the variety is awesome here!

Broke up the run in between the trail systems using very rural roads, the kind that I could (and did) just run down the middle of.  It was all fun until about two miles to go, when I got chafing in my thighs and it started to hurt.  Got back to the car a little sore there and a sweaty mess overall (the temp was near 70 by now), leaving me with no desire to convert 10.86 miles into 11 flat.  Sorry if TMI, but with warmer weather here, it reminded me it's time for me to:

• Start using Body Glide on medium and long runs.
• Put a towel in the car to wipe up sweat.
• Bring more water for post-run.

Post-run, I continued my cleaning at home.
What to do with bibs all over the place?  Matthew and Mike B
have each done a great job with displaying theirs on walls, whereas I've done a
disservice by keeping them in piles next to my bureau.
Cleaned and got rid of half of them; kept the more colorful and meaningful bibs,
and put them in a shoe box.

Now what to do with the panoply of medals?  I had two
overflowing shoe boxes of them.  Ugh.
I came up with a rule of only keeping the ones earned in
marathons, half-marathons, half-Ironmans, or overseas races
(UK, Iceland, and Singapore).

Hmmm... that would mean I have to get rid
of our own club medals that I've earned.
I paused at that sacrilege, and then thought of the
"Swedish Death Cleaning" (someone, perhaps Beth,
enlightened me of that) and I already have way too much
crap that I don't want to burden myself down with anymore,
never mind my heirs when I die,
 and realistically what will anyone ever do with these things?
I have never even taken them out of their packaging.  Gone.

But it's not that easy.  This is one is too cute, so I kept it.

And how could I throw away this wooden
award from a race in Alaska, that came with a hand-written
note mailed from the RD?  I ended up keeping both the award and letter.
  (Isn't this the attachment mindset that leads me to keep too much stuff in the first place?)

What do others do in terms on keeping or discarding bibs or medals or race paraphernalia?  I'm curious.

Throwing away some running stuff this afternoon was a little bit hard, but the other stuff I threw away or shredded (paper income tax returns from 2009, airline tickets from 2005, an old sentimental Garmin watch that hasn't worked in years) was relatively easy (and a tad embarrassing).  Some of my colleagues at work marvel (or so they say) at what a minimalist footprint I have at work (I take meeting notes on my tablet instead of a paper notebook, I refuse to print out/hand out materials for meetings I host [I project them on screen, video conferencing, WebEx, shared folders instead] and have almost no paper in my office), so they may be surprised to see my clutter at home.  I've made slow progress (e.g., substituting electronic statement receipts for mailed paper versions, storing income tax returns on PDF with a backup to the cloud, etc.), but have a long ways to go.

Weekly mileage:  59

Weekly synopsis:  Fun week with good mileage!  3 road runs, 6 trail runs, 1 swim.  Feeling good.

Weekly highlight:  Today's Tillinghast/Nicholas Farm run.  Just a fun, quiet place to get away from it all and enjoy nature.

Weekly lowlight:  Mean dog day at Arcadia.  That marred an otherwise enjoyable run and got the best of me for a while, before I let it go.