surprise- another rainy day in oxford

up at the range late yesterday in a small storm to hit balls and did what i could given the weather made it all pretty miserable most of the time, though there were moments of clouds and sun rather than just downpour. i used those moments to do a little more chipping. nobody else would come out from under cover so i had a chance to practice chipping for a bit and continued to work on my three main clubs- 8iron, lob wedge and hybrid. i know now also that i can chip with any club without too much more practice on any specific one of them. just depends on the situation and need for loft or roll, etc.

once you practice or play often enough you can feel when you need to do something differently as when the ball is sitting down in a hole or in taller grass. wish i had that same feeling with all of my clubs, but i certainly don't.

today we got up and went out to run before the storms hit again as it wasn't too bad early. we did the loop around king edward park and then went to the made up track area to run some sprints. my basal rate was 45 today so at least my heart had recovered. gail and i are in different places in that respect as her legs are ahead of her heart and my heart is ahead of my legs. not that my legs cannot do the runs, but they are geared up right now for long slow distance(lsd for runners) and faster running beats them up and exposes their weaknesses to injuries.

so carefully i did a relaxed workout trying just to stay under 8 minute pace and work my way down. it will be real track time soon and there is no reason to be hurt before the real work starts. i ran the workout while gail ran her own version of a workout and when she was done i ran the loop back to the main road where she left to go home and i turned around and ran the loop back to the track again(it is one side of a track cut into the grass). was raining now. and i continued to run and work my way down to 5:28 pace-these are short sprint's so that is not very impressive, but it is good leg turnover work and with 62 miles in the last 8 days not too bad.

finished up my 28th sprint and did some good stretching and headed the long way back down the bike path to the north hinksey village road and then turned for home. not a bad workout and i hope there is something left for tomorrow's longer really slow run.

got a lot of stuff done at home while waiting for the rain to let up enough to walk up to the range and finally, like yesterday, gave up waiting and just went. that is why we have gortex now right? i was the only one up there when i got there and all of the workers were hitting balls pretty much. the rain was now on and off. when it stopped i chipped and when it rained i hit. still only working on my irons. not as well as yesterday, but not as badly as three weeks ago or most of this past year for that matter.

eventually the rain was just too hard to do much. you couldn't really see where the balls were going and it was coming down so hard that chipping didn't make much sense so i did some set up and posture work and some weighted club swings and then left to walk home and get really wet.

but i lived through it and now dried off i type. listened to some of the news shows from this past sunday as i did some work in the house and some reading i needed to do. gail is off to london tomorrow- so we will need to be out of the house by 5:20 or so. should still be raining. the next several days look wet. people must get tired of all of this rain, but i guess they get used to it as they like to say they do.

92 days to go.
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saw the next article and i guess we will have plenty of traffic to deal with back there. with ft belvoir expanding and the new educational center at mt vernon and the beltway adding toll lanes it should be lots of fun. wonder what gas will cost by the time we are back there. the first time i put gas in my own car- not my dad's, it was kayo gas and was 18.9. then i switched to the cheap gas at food fair for 17.9. didn't last long and soon enough gas had rocketed to almost 30cents. saw gas on sale here at the cheap gas place for $9.90 a gallon us money. but i paid $3.30 for a large bottle of diet coke today so why not pricey gas? also read that oxford is the only place in the UK where housing prices have not gone down. there are just too many people and not enough places to live here. but i digress....
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Toll Lane Work Means Hundreds Of Trees Will Be Removed
04-29-2008 10:26 AM

(Tysons Corner, VA) -- Hundreds of trees along the beltway in Northern Virginia will disappear, as crews set up staging areas to add four new toll lanes. Trees and brush are being removed along the beltway near Georgetown Pike, Chain Bridge Road, I-66 and Braddock Road. Project spokesman Steve Titunik says because the Georgetown Pike staging area is near a school, the land will be turned into a nature area when the toll lane project is finished. The 14-mile project between Springfield and the Dulles Toll Road will create lane closures and traffic delays when the major construction work gets underway this summer. Two public hearings are scheduled next month in Northern Virginia.

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