Seasoning

Forty-eight on the backyard thermometer this morning, our first 40 in a couple of months. I see a near-90 in the forecast for next week, but the diminishing daylight and the falling angle of the sun mean there won’t be any more heat waves. Let's call summer over—for what is summer if it isn’t the possibility that it’ll be so damn hot for so long that you begin to fantasize about the rainy season? That never even happened this year. The closest we came was last week, when we endured four consecutive days around 95. Included in that stretch was the fun, well-organized and extravagantly appointed Friday evening Catnip 5K. Ninety-one at race time! I figure the heat cost me 10 or 15 seconds. Also, I forgot my street-racing shoes and had to run in the worn-out trail shoes I happened to be wearing, which probably cost me 10 additional seconds. Hmm. If I can think of a few more excuses I might actually arrive at a respectable time. But you know—and this I told myself and Niko afterward—they can't all be PRs. It wasn't that long ago when I was striving to bust through 20 minutes, so a 19:39 on a hot night in the wrong shoes, OK, fine. (Plus, that course is not very fast. A few tiny but severe climbs, lots of sharp turns in the late going...).

Meanwhile, I ran a 10:13 in the Mouse Miler that followed the 5K, out kicked at the line by one Niko Danko, who according to the Garmin data blasted the final tenth in 40 seconds on his way to a 10:11 finish. I'll get that rascal next time.

By the numbers:
19:39
6:19/mile
20/292 overall
19/113 men
6/33 men 40-49