Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Linux.

I realized a few days ago I haven’t written about running in a long time. Bad weather this winter kept runs to a minimum without a lot of advancement on time or length. This spring, however, and into the summer, I have made great gains. I am now running 2.75 miles per run four days a week. As length gets longer, it has become easier to add more in small increments over time. Finally, I have been able to find a good route in my neighborhood which accommodates the length I want and has decent terrain as well.

If you would like to follow my training, check out my profile on Daily Mile. Feel free to add me as a friend.

June brought terrible weather (we had record amounts of rain) and a few pretty adventurous runs.  One took me through a few inches of rapidly moving water on Nautilus Ave. and some interesting hops through puddles on other days.  I’ve enjoyed the warmer weather in the last week or two because the sun feels nice in the early evening and warmer conditions push me to run harder and faster.

For the month I averaged about 7.5 minutes per mile.  My two best times were somewhere in the middle of the month.  Afterwards, I actually went up a lot for two consecutive runs and then back down.  I ended the month with my best mile time of the year.

Since school has gotten out, I seem to keep running past students of mine who are walking somewhere or another.  I’ve had my name screamed out of moving cars three times since the beginning of June.

Since I started running more seriously, and consistently, about two years ago I’ve meant to start blogging about my experience.  I’ll try to do this each month when I am clearing my monthly Google Doc spreadsheet to begin a new one.

In May I made great strides towards lowering my mile time. I am running 1.5 miles, four or five days a week, depending on some factors, and feel great doing it. Last summer I moved up to two miles per run, but had slowed down a bit during the winter. At the beginning of May, I was averaging a bit over eight minutes per mile. By the time the end of the month, I was down to a little over seven and a half minutes, which included my best mile time ever.

I’ll post an update each month or more often if readers have ideas for posts. I don’t really follow running culture too much, so I am not that clued into what bloggers typically write about in regards to running.

Recently read: On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony

I listened to the audio version of this novel during the summer. I tried to reread some of Anthony’s novels from this series back in 2005 but found myself moving through them very slowly. They are still good, very intertextual, and extremely thoughtful, but I had this nagging difficulty with them. Listening to the audio book, however, was a very pleasant experience. This is the kind of novel that needs, perhaps, a good reading that can be listened to on the go. I listened in the car and while running, amusingly the author’s note at the end is about Anthony’s experiences running at the time, and found myself eager for the next chance to listen.