two days in one

was just about to write up yesterday's blog when the light fixture in gail's office blew up and cut off the power in the house or so we first thought. turns out some circuits were still working, but by the time we got it all sorted out the blog was skipped over.

on a pretty typical very cloudy and drizzly morning i ran north towards st margaret's church and stopped at the measured sprint pole area on the way south to run some striders. goal was to stay under control and run as many as possible- no set number- these were the shorter striders than the other day and i thought i could run them comfortably at about 8 minute pace. and that is what happened.

did 3 sets of 20, stretching a bit after each set. in hindsight now as i type this, 40 would have been good enough, as the 60 left the legs a little tight for this morning's run. but 60 it was and then down and over to the thames trail. rain had stopped and the sun peeked through the clouds just a bit. the river was black today, a really dark color.

but no adventure today. usual suspects were about, the crew teams out on the river while the cows and horse grazed about. the swans were pretty enough and a man was throwing bread pieces at them while i kept running down the trail and over to the canal. ran my little loop there i like to do and headed back down and over to osney island. picked up the king edward trail there and went down to the end of the trail and back to the grocery store to get a sunday newspaper and then home. a decent little 9 mile workout and run. knew i would pay for the 60 efforts tomorrow and i did today.

so today in the rain i just went as slow as i could go so i could keep moving and stay out long enough to get some exercise in. gail came out about three miles into my run and i had headed back down binsey lane looking to see if she would come out. hard to stop reading with so few pages to finish the book.

we turned back up binsey and to the church. the sheep were grazing and the cows were on the move playing follow the leader. i mooed at them and they kept their eye on me. doesn't actually sound like a moo when they do it, more like a loud blah. but at any rate gail stopped to do her striders while i ran up and down the lane waiting. then we headed home and i ran down to the store again to pick up a few things and then home to get the electric people out to the house.

pretty typical that when i called the management people were out of the office until the 29th on holiday, but a couple of calls later i found someone who could help and i await them as i type this.

after yesterday's run i took a chance and loaded the golf stuff up and walked to the bus station and caught a bus and went out to a little nine hole golf course. the sky was dark, but not rainy and since more rain wasn't due until 4pm i thought it was worth the shot at playing. lots of walking later i was on the course. only person out there except for the dog walkers, one of whom had a huge boxer who must not have like golfers, but eventually was taken away.

and i played so-so at best though i did manage one birdie and one double Bogey and a slew of pars and bogies. played 18 holes and practiced some. all in all a worthwhile outing. re-enforced what i knew i needed to practice. chipped and putted really well despite no practice on that stuff. made a nice 15 footer for the birdie and 2 little twelve footers for pars. was hooking a bit as i do when i make bad turns and leave the club stuck behind me. and it would have been easy to be frustrated by it, but i will stay encouraged that i was able to play first of all and get around ok for 18 holes with one ball- one of mary's taylor made's.

and that brings me to now. read in the paper that a golfer in his 90's drove his "buggy" into a trap and overturned it and it crushed him to death. his partner had minor injuries. what a shame! there will be more on this story as i am not sure they really know what happened yet. this gentleman had played that course for mover 40 years and i sense he may have had a medical problem and that the buggy then went into the trap. will see. either way a really nice man judging from the paper has died, and on the same golf course that has had two major fies in the last few months and has fought off developers from taking it over.

home today from viet nam 40 years. 100 days to go to be home from here. what will i count down next? is there a lesson there?