I ran today.  7 miles, lame pace.  I had massive cramps the whole way.  That’s what I get for eating just before I left.  And not drinking enough water today.

I’m having trouble with running during the week.  Its dark before I leave work.  I don’t feel safe running at the park at night, after seeing bears (or whomever owned the three pairs of green eyes, staring at me from the woods).  So, my mid-week runs would consist of endless loops in my neighborhood.  One loop is 1.7 miles.   And an 8 mile midweek run is…um…46,345 loops!  I want to shoot myself by the time its over.   Bleh.

I sent my new shoes back to Shoebacca, in exchange for a half size larger.  Hopefully, those will fit ok.  If they don’t, I may cry.  I need shoes that fit and Addidas doesn’t want to sell me my Adizero PR’s.  I can find them online, but not in my size anymore.  The PRO’s are pretty scarce too.  :(

I’ve had more thoughts about the book I want to write.  Its fiction.  Yeah I know, everyone thinks they can write fiction and it all sucks.  But this is a really good idea and it may actually not suck.  Well, right now it sucks.  I have the basic premise, its the fine details that are bogging it down.  Think of it like a murder mystery (but its not really a murder mystery), where you know who the killer should be, and who he killed, but you can’t decide on exactly how he killed the victim and why.

I’m trying to steer clear of “magical” answers that fix things that you can’t figure out a good plot for.  For example, can’t decide how the murderer got into the study and killed Colonel Mustard without a key to the room?  Add a secret door that nobody knew about until the last 5 pages of the book!  No.  That’s stupid.  And too easy.  I will avoid secret doors if I can.

I had a nice moonlit 4 mile run tonight (7:56 pace).  I had to stop at my car to pull out a pair of cotton gloves to wear because it was cold.  I think it was only 45F, but my hands were freezing.  Not cold enough to wear lycra or running pants yet, but the day is coming soon.

I bought Halloween candy at the store tonight.  Probably bought too much again this year.  I will try to bring the extra to work instead of eating it all this year.  I’ve kept the weight down this summer, and I’m hoping to keep it down over the winter.  In fact, my plan is to drop those last 10 pounds.  I already started my upper body workouts in the mornings again to get a little tone back in me.

While I was walking during lunch time, I came across someone parked by the side of the road, engine running, and slumped over in the car seat.  The guy looked to be about 70.  This road is a back road in a very rural area, so a car parked here was really unusual.

We knocked on the window and the guy eventually woke up.  There was an oxygen bottle on the seat next to him.  We asked him if he was ok, and he nodded and said he was ok.  So we walked on.  About 5 minutes later, we looked back and saw that he had driven through the intersection with the main road and ran into the guard rail on the other side, still sitting half in the road.

Cars had stopped and people we out at his car talking to him through the window.  We could see him hitting the brakes every few minutes and occasionally the backup lights would light up, like he was trying to move the car.  After a very long time (very rural area), a fire truck and an ambulance showed up.  Turns out he did not have a license, it was not his car, and he was about 45 minutes from his house.  Apparently, he had driven all that way, careening off guard rails the entire way, because he could not drive.  I felt like I should have recognized that something was wrong, and I should have asked more questions of him.

I have my last long run today, 8 miles.   But I’m not running it this morning.  That’s because its 43F outside, and on race day it will be 65F.  This is my last chance to run in warmish weather before the race and I want to do my best to acclimate.

This happens often for me:  I train my butt off in cool weather, then race day comes and we get a heat wave.  It sucks.  I remember training for the Dexter Ann Arbor run.  I did speed workouts on trails and seriously busted my butt to cut down my 5K time, but the weather was cool.  Race day came and it was in the 60′s and sunny by start time.  I was already sweating.  Oh, I did PR.  By only a few seconds.

So here comes a very hard-trained marathon, and the heat is beginning to rise again.  The high for the day is looking like 68F right now, with a low only in the 50′s the night before.  I’m hoping clouds will move in for the morning and keep the sun off my head.  Crossing my fingers.

In other paranoid news, I went and bought the Forerunner 205.

I couldn’t trust my 201 to continue working through the entire race.  I may end up wearing it as a back up, or a watch.  I need to buy a watch.

I chose the 205 because it does all the same things the 3o5 does, except it doesn’t have the heart rate monitor.  Since I never use a HRM (and I have a Polar HRM already), I decided to save the $30 and get the 205.  I even like the color better.

I like the fact that it picks up the satellite signals better.  I don’t get the “low signal” warning when I run under trees any more.  I can download the data to my computer again, thanks to a USB cable instead of the clunky serial cable on the 201.  The new computer software looks nicer than the old stuff too.

Some drawbacks are that the plastic wrist strap is not very comfortable.  I miss the soft velcro strap of the 201.  Also, they made the font smaller on the screen for some of the messages.  The screen itself is smaller than the 201, so I could see why they might have to shrink the font, but since the pop-up messages appear in the middle of the screen anyway (and block you from reading other things), why not just make them bigger and more readable, since there’s nothing else you can read on the screen anyway?  Maybe that’s what happens when programmers design you display and not runners.

I had a good time at my son’s crew race yesterday.  He was very focused despite having a lingering cough and pinching a nerve in his neck moving one of the boats (he had can’t-turn-your-head disease).  His quad came in first.

Leaves are all falling here because its been chilly out lately.  We had a huge rainstorm that really flooded the river.  They canceled rowing practice for my son on Friday (just loading up boats for the day) because there was too much debris in the river.  I could see the trees in the water, even while driving on the highway and looking down from the cliff.

We were up in Lake Placid and it was freeeeeeezing!  I saw 52F as the high for the day, but the wind made it much colder.  I was totally unprepared and my son forgot his sweatpants.  I ran out to the local overpriced tourist shop and bought some night Lake Placid knit hats and a hoodie sweatshirt.  Souvenirs from the race, I guess.  I was just happy it wasn’t me out in the middle of the lake.  :)

I’m making truffles this morning.  I tried a pumpkin truffle recipe on Friday and it was horrible.  The recipe used 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves.  The whole darn house stunk like cloves and it stained my good rubber spatula.  I threw the crap away and started over without the cloves.  This morning the mix is still too soft, so I think I may need to get some ice and try to chill it more before forming the centers.

Chocolate is melting in the temperer right now.  I’ve been putting in a little bit more cocoa butter to see if I can thin it out a little more.  I’m trying to get a thinner shell on the truffles, and give them smaller feet so I don’t get that giant blob of chocolate on the bottom.  The dark coating should compliment the center, not dominate in flavor and texture.

Six more days.