Princess forecast

Orlando forecast for next weekend: lows 54-56*F, highs 78-81*F.

Lovely for spectators! Death for cold-acclimated runners running in hot costumes!

I got in a fairly comfortable 4-mile run today on a miserable icy drizzly day, but I was happy to remain within a short jog of the construction-site portapotties within my own neighborhood. Looking forward to next weekend, heat stroke or no!

In the rain

This is how wet it was at Chesapeakeman!

Photo courtesy Chuck Potter! And I'm delighted that he was there and captured Dave's first iron-distance triathlon finish! Hooray!!!! Dave, you are an IRONMAN!!!

In which Catherine becomes famous

The remnants of Hanna

Some minor street flooding near the harbor - but it was no match for Superhero Catherine, the Energy Girl!

Tropical Storm Hanna updates

6:20 AM: Here I'm all ready for a hurricane and we haven't even gotten a teensy little tropical storm yet. All we have so far is TROPICAL - the humidity has gone off the charts overnight and it's very warm and the outside of the windows were covered with condensation when I woke up. No sign of rain yet. They say the maximum sustained winds are 60 mph but here it's only 1 mph with gusts to 9.

There's a big blob on the radar that begins about 50 miles south of here, though. Looks kind of cool on the animation.

I'm up early to head for the pool. I sure hope they didn't do something dumb like close the Y today.

9:54 AM: The rain started about 7:15 AM and stayed very light and there was almost no wind until I finished my swim and my drive home from the Y. I was able to get in a nice leisurely 2150-yard swim and see some triathlete friends at the pool. Just now after I got home I heard our first big clap of thunder. I'm staying home and dry and snug for the rest of the day! Right now it's 76*F and winds are averaging 1 mph with occasional gusts to 15 mph from the northeast.

11:07 AM: Rain has picked up now into a steady downpour. Wind is wheeling between north and east, 17 mph now with gusts to 25. A couple thunderclaps so far but that's all. Temperature is still a nice comfortable 75*F. The next high tide around here isn't until 10:30 tonight, but that one will probably have a significant amount of flooding if this hard rain keeps up all day. Staying in the house for the rest of the day and about to start mixing cupcakes! Just hope we don't have a power failure in the middle of baking them!

12:42 PM: Not much action here now. The rain has stopped completely and the skies have brightened. Total rainfall has only been 0.3 to 0.4 inches by most local reporting stations. Winds have dropped below 10 mph with occasional gusts to 24 mph, coming out of the east to southeast. Maybe I will go run today after all!

4:55 PM: This storm was a bit of a fizzle so far! We're just about in the center of it now - at the airport just northeast of us the winds are coming from the east, while about 10 miles south of us the winds are coming from the northwest. Not much wind yet and some showers off and on. The radar to the south of us looks like there shouldn't be much more rain in the southern part of the rotation.

7:45 PM: At twilight the rain has stopped, the wind has shifted and is now coming from the northwest at 20 mph with gusts to 30. It's still 73*F outside, but I think the show's over, folks! There's some minor flooding near the harbor but nothing more severe than we see every so often at very high tides.

Banish those weather excuses!

The old saying goes, "There's no bad weather, just bad clothing."

So with that in mind, and looking down the road to the coming cold-weather season, I just put in a big order for windblocker winter gear. The idea is to hopefully bring down my lowest permissible cycling temperature this winter. In the past I haven't been willing to go out much below 30*F because when you're on the bike going at anything over 15 mph the wind really starts knifing in to any exposed flesh.

So I just ordered: Windblocker tights; windblocker cycling gloves; and a windblocker balaclava.

That should pretty much cover everything! I've got a variety of jackets in the closet to choose from, and footwarmers, so that should defend the other bits from frost. Let's see how low we can go now!! NO EXCUSES!!!

Why lose all that hard-earned cycling fitness just because it's a few degrees colder? (And don't suggest I get on the trainer - it drives me insane!) I'm hoping to bring my temperature limit down to about 15-20*F since it rarely gets colder than that around here. And most of the time any snow or ice on the roadside is cleared quite quickly.

Here comes Hanna!

Looks like we will be having a hurricane visiting on Saturday around 2PM! Winds are forecast (depending on who you listen to) at 50-60 mph.

Should be exciting! I don't expect it will really bother us except keep us indoors most of the day. I'd better take the umbrella in from the deck. Hopefully the tree in back won't fall on the house.

We really need the rain here, actually.... But not all at once! Good thing I don't have any races or special plans this weekend!

Race day forecast

Sunday, 3 August
Rise: 6:41 am
Set: 9:02 pm
UV Index: 8 (Very High)
Relative Humidity: 68%
Precipitation Probability: 10%
Cloud Coverage: 54%
Wind Speed: 8Mph (12Km, 6Kts)
Wind Direction: 325° (NW)
Partly Cloudy
High 78°
Low 65°

Woot! Sounds absolutely delightful to me - we haven't seen seventies after the sun is up for quite a while! I'm packing my armwarmers just in case it's chillier than forecast!!

No long run

It was too sweltering by the time I rolled my carcass out of bed to do a long run. The dew point has remained well over 71*F, making everything sticky and uncomfortable even when temperatures are moderate. When temps rise, it gets downright dangerous. So I settled for mile repeats at the track again. That was hot and slow enough!

It can always get worse. Last night a 60-year-old man collapsed and died at a local 8k race.

Be careful out there!

Stir crazy

I needed to run today or I was going to have to duct-tape my girls to the wall, after being indoors with them all day yesterday. Went to the Y and checked them into kiddie jail there and did 3.5 miles on the treadmill in the relatively cool fitness center. Things are better now, even though it was already 105*F heat index at noon. Whew, close call. Might be able to survive the rest of the day.

Looking forward to swimming under this bridge in Philadelphia in 12 days - should be fun! I'll be testing my lack of running with a 10K race this weekend, first. That should tell the tale of how much my running fitness I have left.

Oh great.

Forecast:
Sunday, Jun 8
High: 93 °F RealFeel®: 99 °F
Very hot and humid with sunshine mixing with some clouds

I wonder how long it takes me to walk a half marathon these days? I'm thinking 3:30 to 3:45.

Slog

Looks like a nasty day for running (Cherry Pit Ten Miler in Edgewater, MD) and a good day for hypothermia. 45*F.

PLUS they re-routed the course to include some nice muddy trail and stream crossings since the State Roads Department pulled their permit at the last second. Oh, joy.

I can only hope I finish the ten-miler and all the intelligent runners sleep in and I pick up a few placings in the Championship Series standings.

Yeah, I do this for fun.

Today's goal: finish.

---

Update: Mission accomplished. Race run, finish line crossed. I sure hope it improves my standings in the Championship Series!

BUT it was probably the suckiest most miserable horrible race I've done, maybe ever. Not because of the management and volunteers, which were as great as usual - but cold cold drenched to-the-bone wet hill hill hill hills that don't stop and then two slogs (1 mile each, out and back, between the two red arrows below) through deep slippery shoe-sucking mud and thorn bushes and two stream crossings. I was soaked head-to-toe with mud to my knees. I finished, that's all that can be said for it, but I was one of the last across the finish line.

On the way there, a guy passing me said, in a massive understatement, "I don't think I'll do this one next year". I replied, "Why? The weather can't possibly be WORSE!" People are going to be talking about this race for a long time.

It was so awful all I could do was laugh. I suppose it's great training for my Muddy Buddy with Holly this coming summer!

Plus Dave and Stuart rode along with me so it was fun to have company on the drive. Unfortunately Dave's knee was acting up so he couldn't run, but I'm sure Stuart did well.

Eagleman forecast

Looking pretty good for Sunday! Coolest day in a 6-day span. It's supposed to be 94*F on Friday, so I'll just spend some time outdoors in the hottest part of the day, and use it for heat acclimatization, and try not to freak out!

Sunday - 10 Jun 2007
Mostly Sunny
High 82°
Low 63°
Plenty of sun. Highs in the low 80s and lows in the low 60s.
Sunrise: 5:40 am
Sunset: 8:28 pm
NE Wind Direction: NE (42°)
Speed: 7 Mph (11Km, 6Kts)

www.wunderground.com says 65*F-78*F during the race and only 3-5 mph winds!!! Woot!

Worst. Conditions. Ever.

I'm back from the Ocean City Half Marathon and a couple of days at the beach.

We had a nice seasonal Easter blizzard, beginning promptly with the starting gun at the ocean front at 7:00 AM. Just the thing for a lovely beach weekend!! Gusts from the north at something like 30 mph, too.

I have never felt MORE sorry for race volunteers and full marathon runners! The worst part was the bridge at the 12-mile mark - I thought we had it bad going over the bridge in high winds mostly to our back and pending hypothermia - but the sight of the full marathoners heading back out directly into the wind with another half marathon in front of them -- bent halfway over and shielding their eyes and faces against the driving snow, climbing the steep bridge -- was definitely a sight to inspire pity! I was never so glad to be approaching a finish line!

In any other conditions it would have been a lovely event, but it felt like an epic struggle this year!

I was still pleased with my time - within one minute of my PR:

Watch time: 2:27:04 (Mile 10 1:52:56, last 5K 34:07).

Garmin time, you ask? Who knows! Yep, screwed it up again. Fastest mile 10:47, first 4 miles within 3 seconds of that, slowest mile the seventh or eighth when I walked a while to choke down a gel, 11:45.

Hooray! My 30th half marathon done, and #4 completed in my quest to complete 5 half marathons under 2.5 hours each this spring to celebrate my 50th year! The final one coming up in 2 weeks should be (comparatively) a walk in the park, I hope!

No race photos (other than the official photographer photos), due to my new policy of minimizing gear carried on race day - but I have several from the weekend to share in my next post.

Ready for open water swims

I bought all the new gear online for it and it should be arriving within a few days:

Neoprene socks (I'm quite sure they're going to be sexier even than Geekgirl's toesocks)
Neoprene swimming hood
Neoprene webbed gloves

I'm going to be channeling the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Sexy or not, it's still going to take me a major act of will to step into water that will probably be in the upper 40s or lower 50s. Swimming with my face in the water may be out of the question.

I'll let you know how it goes. . . .

Race day a'comin'!

Forecast is worsening for the National Half Marathon on Saturday. Ugh!

90% chance of showers at the start, 47*F, but light (5 mph) winds.

Frankly, it's the kind of weather that would normally prompt me to skip a road race and sleep in, since I really dislike cold rain - but I want to get my five halves done and in the bag this spring. So I've committed to seeing my racer buddies at the starting line, at the back of the pack - probably the last I'll see of them until after the finish line!

It looks like a great course this year, starting out heading down the long axis of the Mall, past the U.S. Capitol, Smithsonian buildings, Washington Monument and White House. I've lived in this area for 17 years now, so I tend to forget to sightsee around those national landmarks!

The marathon course doubles back on the half marathon course so we'll be able to see those runners heading out. One of my new goals for the race is to make it to the split just before the 6 mile mark before the elites come through at mile 15 of the marathon. If I'm having a really, really good day, I'll make it to the course re-join at the 7 mile mark before they get to the 14!!

Of course, if my shoes are soaking wet and weigh ten pounds apiece, that will slow me down. Yeah, that's it! It's my wet shoes that make me slow!!

I found my limit

My limit for riding outside in winter is now officially 22 to 26*F and 10 to 12 mph winds. That's how cold it was for our ride today and while we had a very good workout, I don't think I want to brave it out there in anything very much colder! When the water in my aerobottle tube freezes up and the anti-splash pouf freezes in place, and the water freezes my teeth when I drink it, that's cold enough!! Plus it's kind of difficult to ride with three pairs of gloves on and your glasses fogging up every time you slow down. The small exposed area of my face got quite windburned, too, and stung when I took my hot bath upon my return home.

But the worst cold day outside on the bike is still better than the best day indoors on the bike trainer, by a long shot! We checked out the ice on the waterfront, saw a couple of hawks, and talked to my training partner David's brother-in-law the waterman, who was out working on his boat.