uk is a happier place when the sun is out

went out today not sure exactly what to expect of tired legs; early am heart rate was 46 and that was ok. headed up to st margaret's church and then over and up the river path. seemed like all of oxford's crew teams were out training and that added a nice touch to the run along with hundreds of honking geese. port meadow is still mostly under water so the river looks very wide and the really glistened on the water as the frost had already melted. the day was getting rapidly warmer.

just at the turn around point i hooked up with a woman runner, now known as the bath half marathon lady, and ran a really nice 1.5 miles with her at 80%+ heart rate pace and was still able to maintain a conversation. could feel the pace in the quads and left hamstring a bit, proving to myself what i have known-that the lungs are ahead of my legs. still, it was nice doing some real running and talking about races in the uk and how hard it was to train in the dark. i also had a chance to tell her about a couple of parks i had run in that she didn't know about. most runner's are creatures of habit, but i have always been an explorer runner and will seek any new place to run. one of the joys of running is finding a new park or trail or bumping into new people.


half marathon woman went off across port meadow and i headed down the thames and over the channel to botley road and did my last little kick down the street to the community center. then walked off the lactic acid in the legs and headed to eggs, etc to get a paper and some fresh baked rye bread and yogurt. all in all a pretty good run and effort.


continuing the meet new people day, met a guy who was obviously just finished his run and doing the same shopping i was at the store, andy from riverside st. he had taken the bus out 16 mileds and run back in to get a long point to point run in as training for the london marathon. he had also been to dc to run the marine corps marathon and we talked about the heat and humidity of washington and how hard it had been to run there.

andy knew how to get to boar's hill, a run i had tried to do, but have not gotten past the gates marked private; will try again next week and we agreed to hook up and run sometime soon. he told me not to worry about the sign saying private and to just keep the skyline of oxford on my right. he's looking for under 4 hours at london.

after clean up and breakfast and a quick listen to gwen's pbs show, i headed over to the driving range and gail did some cleanup editing type work. then we were off to jericho to see "juno", a so so movie in my mind, though i must admit, most movies i have seen lately all have been c+ type stuff. waiting for the next shawshank effort.

after the movie we did what i have almost come to dread, we went out to eat. a nice little italian restaurant in jericho. service was pretty good until coffee time. putting this in perspective for my usa friends- we each had a little salad, we ordered some bread, gail had sparkling water and i had two diet cokes. this was followed by the main meal of a bowl of ravioli and personal size pizza. we had a piece of chocolate tart and a chocolate pudding -very small- with a little dab of vanilla ice cream. add one coffee and all this was ours for $94 including tip. tip was 10% which they add in to the bill. an okay meal and decent enough service, even if they forgot gail's coffee. $94--

anyway-- a nice day and one less to go. supposed to be nice weather the next few days as they have taken rain out of the forecast. no set plans for tomorrow so we'll see what develops. got our laundry done tonight so that will free up some time.

quick golf note: hit only a small bucket as that was all there was time for and a little bit was better than none as i continue to work on new swing and grip. met demian there, a guy who started playing golf on 9/11. told him i played golf that day also-twin lakes as i recall.
my friend sally was there also and hit some balls before she headed out to play golf for the first time. can you feel the brain churning as i had the chance to go, but had already committed to a so-so movie and a so-so $94 dinner? the mature me went to the movie and dinner. i am so grown up these days it hurts sometimes.

spell check still down so i hope for the best as i am out of edit time.