hottest day of the oxford uk year, etc

weather report says it hit 86 here today. but i was out to run pretty early and it was 61 degrees when i started towards the king george's park and related bike paths. actually felt a little cool and nice and i was running ok. morning heart rate was back down to 48, which is still not good, from yesterday's ridiculous 51. i must have been really tired then, but even after a restless night of sleep i felt ok. wanted to do some striders and keep the effort comfortable and stretch a lot.

so after a decent warmup and stretch i ran 24 x 100 and 3 x 200. the 200's were 55, 53 and 54 and given the layout that was ok. i put them into the mix and ran them every so often in the middle of the 100's. a decent workout and not bothered by anyone during it as the dog walkers gave me some room today. just mostly tried to stay relaxed and stride and breathe correctly and use the right leg more often than i have lately. the night hamstring and ITB stretches are helping, but at home i must add soleus and more PF stretches also.

after a good hard last 100 i could tell that was enough and ran the loop backwards and did the trail along the creekbed for probably the last time while we are here. it was warming up fast also. i ran into a woman who had on a vancouver t-shirt, nicoli i believe she said her name was, and she was training for the half marathon in london this coming october. a really cute and sweet girl who just loved running in vancouver's stanley park like i did also. we chatted about that for a bit and then we each had to go our separate ways. then ran into my guy who writes musicals, everyday an adventure here. interesting guy and we talked about getting old and slowing metabolism as he said he was up to 14 stone but didn't know how many pounds that was- 196 i told him. certainly didn't look it and he seemed to be in decent shape and after a bit we also went our own ways.

we had a lunch to go to at noon and i had several things to do so i headed off with about 8 miles in at this point. with the sprints of course, it is not a steady run but easy enough to figure out how far you ran and the estimate is not as important as the sprint work and how the legs handle it. eventually i will do much longer and harder workouts when i get home and that is pretty close now. what i need to find is someone who will run their slow days with me on my fast days. my 200's range right now from 48-55 and that is about 6:30-7:30 pace roughly. the last 400 i ran was at 7:20 pace so there is hope and much room for improvement. but it is the process i like so the speed will get better or not.

stopped at the store for some yogurt and fruit and stuff and was checking out when a young woman came in and asked about a jam sandwich which they didn't make she was told. obviously she was hungry and had been working somewhere and i left some money on the counter for her to use and she thanked me more than i deserved. had it been easier i would have given her more, but she really didn't want to appear that hungry. even the guy behind the counter tried to let her buy something and bring the money back later. i have been poorer than now, but not hungry and there is just no need for that in this world.

especially as i was headed home to pack and get ready to go to a luncheon. it is a shame we keep discovering half decent places to eat and today the lunch was at a place like giovanni's in philly or riviera in alexandria. was $90 for three of us as we also paid for a friend of gail's as a way of paying her back just a little bit for all of her help as we would not have our bank account without here. but at least the service was better than anywhere else in oxford i had eaten at and the food was good actually. we have paid 90 bucks for bad food and service here before.

then gail headed back to school and i headed off to run many errands i won't bore anyone with the details of. highlight though was trading back in many books we had bought over time here. i like darrell the book guy and we have had a sort of customer friendship and we trade books now rather than buy and sell. works for both of us as i am a softee and always give him the better of the deal. and we had to get rid of the books anyway this time so i took one book for the plane. i still have several of his books.

then off to the golf range where i arranged to give away my 4 golf books i have here and the trolley i bought also. then a few of us hit balls and tried to help each other with our swings. i am still a work in progress, but it was nice hitting the green sometimes from 200 yards. not as nice then blocking and hooking. all in a day's practice. and back home to deal with getting ready again. gave the potted plants to my next door neighbor who gave us a lovely print and a golfer's pen and a carved judas tree. was really nice of him. made arrangements to sell the bikes tomorrow.

in retrospect one year was not long enough as it takes far more time to break in here than it would have back home. i meet more golfers everyday and just plain nice people. i still think the culture is so different from ours and it takes awhile to learn how to deal with that. my own enfp personality is a far cry from the norm here, but being nice and caring about people will win some of them over.

anyway, a decent day- a bit too warm and a pre-cursor to what is ahead back in the states. there is some rain in the forecast for the next several days and we shall see. lots to do and a good part of it won't get done i am sure.

five days and a wake-up now. many places to see that will wait for next time.