Charge!

Now that it has cooled down a bit (okay, in the last week it's been 99 F for a day, then two days later we had 45 minutes of thunderhail, and there was a baby tornado, but I'm averaging it all out and calling it autumn), I'm trying to get back into running.

Running when it's dark at 6am has traditionally been a problem for me. I mean, I've tripped and banged up my knees in broad daylight, so you can imagine what I'm like when it's dark out. But I think I've solved it because now I have a headlamp and I've figured out how to get onto the track across the street, so the tripping hazards have gone way down.

I also joined an app called Charge Running, which has scheduled runs during the day. You can join a run and the live coach will guide the workout and give you feedback on how fast you're going and how far you've gone. It helps keep my workouts a little more interesting and I don't procrastinate for 45 minutes trying to figure out what to listen to.

The problem with running in a group (virtually) is that it makes it clear how slowly I run. Sure, Jeff points out that my 13 minute miles are barely faster than a walk, but there's nothing like finding out that someone else's "conversational" pace is faster than your "hard enough that you can barely go that fast for 30 seconds" pace. Not that I'm comparing or anything.

The other thing I've noticed is that I'm truly terrible at taking selfies.

I'm not sure what it says about me that it's not the running that makes me feel old, but the inability to take a picture with my phone...

Ripley sleeps through all my workouts. He probably has the right idea.