beautifully sunny thursday

up at 5am this morning with the intention to get out and run early, but made the mistake of picking up the book i have been reading on bannister's mile record attempt as well as the training of landy and santee and the great races of that era. i find it really interesting and inspirational for sure. so i read for awhile and then went out to run just after 7am.

and it was really warming up fast on the way to 70+ degrees. not quite sure where i wanted to go i headed north up towards st margaret's church. then back down and decided to go north and see how i felt. went up to the nunnery but could not talk myself into leaving the soft trail and head towards wolvercote, so i headed back down the path and over rainbow bridge. down the thames, running ok so far and not feeling too tired. all the way down the river, a glistening blueish black color today, and cut back under the train bridge. geese were coming in for a landing there and are always fun to watch splash down. no swans today though.

was really warming up now. i can tell the fast switch to warm weather will take some getting used to and will need to come up with a plan to carry or buy water more often than i have been used to during the cold, wet days -meaning most of them. but over to the canal i went and ran north for a bit as the south canal trail was closed for construction work. then turned around and headed towards the path behind templeton college. did a little loop there around the college and the said business school and stopped at the bike path. decided to run some short easy sprints there as it was all shaded and not crowded at this time of day.

ran 12 striders just trying to stay smooth and in good form without pushing too hard. by this time i had a little over 8 miles in. legs were still good though i was thirsty and i headed over to the hotel grocery store and bought a bottle of water which i drank on the way to the trail behind osney mead school. wanted to check out the fish pond that the kids had built and it was looking very nice with all of the newly put in plants. wondered how i could add something like that to my garden at home, but knew i would need a pump as they don't have to deal with still water bringing mosquitoes here.

out the back way and south and then over to king edward park. was going to run some loops there, but stopped at the made up grass track straightaway and ran 16 x 100. again, nothing fast, mostly around 7:00+ pace, but good workout on form and breathing and i tried to use my right leg for each of them. jogged the 100 back each time trying to keep the heart rate up a bit as i was more interested in staying relaxed than doing real speed work. with just over 12 miles in now i headed back over to the bike path and ran the entire loop, bringing me to about 14 miles. a sort of convoluted run with two strider breaks, but not bad and i felt pretty good at the end of it.

after the morning stuff was out of the way gail and i walked up to the market place-thursday morning is "antique" day, but we go mostly for the used book dealers there. gail bought one book and we picked up a cute vase for 50p-a dollar in us money. made arrangements to trade some more of our books back to our favorite dealer. one of the fun things to do here is talk about the country and compare it to our own with the local people. one guy reminded me today that the war for independence was really the british fighting the british over taxes, as they weren't really americans yet. he went on to say that he hated bush as well as gordon brown- the prime minister here right now. wants obama to win, but not sure usa is ready for that. we will see.

and home and off to the driving range hoping to build on yesterday's improvement, but not to be. started out well and then hit rubbish, including about two dozen shanks. asked my friend david to watch my swing and i hit about 20 nice 7 irons and he walked away and i shanked the very next shot. could not figure it out though i tried all the usual stuff and even though i was hitting better at the end of the second bucket, i was never comfortable with the swing i was using. stopped and chipped for 40 minutes. that went pretty well. the pitching went ok, but not as good as usual. as they love to say here, "that's golf". well it's not the kind of golf i will settle for.

and now back in the tent house. stuff to do tonight to get ready for tomorrow. after 14 miles today and now with 34 miles for the week so far i have some options. golf wise i will study some tape and do some mirror work and see what i can figure out.
it is distressing to me to see how much i just hate it right now, and though i know a lot of it is mental who needs it. still, i have been here before and dug my way out and can do so again given time. why bother is the question?

on a lighter ending note- was nice to see my daughter's name in the results of a race i used to run all of the time back in the day's of fritzbie's sponsorships. always confounded me why i could not run fast at that race as it had lots of turns and hills back then and i never did get under 39 minutes, but the big thing back then was the post race made to order breakfast omelettes and the edy's ice cream truck. i guess memories are it when you get old. still, good to see at least one tabachnick still racing. with some luck i will re-enter the fold soon. also noted that my old running buddy betty blank won her age group again. nice to still be fast. long distance high five from the UK to both of you.

hotter still tomorrow. another day done.