Month: July 2006

Beat the Heat Run

I wanted to get up early this morning to get out on the road before it got too warm. I normally run between 77 and 85 (25-29 C) degrees. That just happens to be what the temperature is between 7 and 9 in the morning when I do my runs. Has been that way ever since I started running in January. Today though, I was going to get up early and enjoy the coolness.

Yesterday morning at 6 it was a nice cool 73 F/23 C with 100% humidity. I can’t really change the humidity since it only goes down as the temperature rises during the day. So, I should be able to at least run when the temp is low. Today at 6 the temperature was 79/26 with 100%. Sigh.

I am not one of these “jump out of bed into the running clothes and out the door” kinda people. Though I am a morning person and do not at all mind waking up early, I like to ease into my day. I usually take 30 minutes to an hour each day from the time I roll out of the hammock until I am ready to hit the road. So I was up at 5 chomping at the bits to step outside when the sun was up enough to be safe at 6. The run was great. Mentally I made myself feel cooler because it was earlier, but in reality, I had already looked at the temp and knew it was just as hot as normal.

As they say in México…ni modo. I did just over 4 miles at a 10:52 pace. It would have been a few seconds faster had I not stopped to try and be friendly with a few dogs. Also, Leo and Dick had me laughing quite a bit with The Daily Giz Wiz podcast which slowed me down some.

Intervalos

I read in a running magazine this last week about running intervals. Though I had tried to understand them in the past, I could never get my head around how they worked. Matt over at Dump Runners Club helped me understand how to run them and I gave it a go yesterday at the track. I did not do as many as I would have liked. I only did 6 sets at 200 meters each. I averaged a 51.33 second per interval pace. That will now be my goal to shoot for over the next couple of weeks. I will try to run each interval at exactly that speed.

The reason I did not run as many as I would have liked is because I ran into a friend at the track. It is nice to have finally been in the community long enough to start recognizing people in public. She was walking with a friend, so I fell in with them and chatted for a few minutes. I just did not feel like getting back into the intervals after that. All in all, I ran over 3 miles.

Today, I determined that I must really have something going on with the dogs. They were a bit more active today than normal. But not aggressive like they were Saturday. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have not washed my running clothes since my wife went out of town last week.

Dog Perfume

Is there such a thing? If so, I must have been wearing it yesterday. While running I attracted the dogs. We don’t have anything that would pass as leash laws here. It is just you and the wild.

I had a dog run out barking at me yesterday. Usually the ones who bark are behind fences. I think that this dog had gotten out, because I had never seen him before. He actually acted somewhat friendly, but I was not going to let him get close enough to me to share. His bark was enough to keep me running. He was a large white dog. Not sure what kind. Well, his actions set off the whole street. The rest of the dogs on the street became very aggressive in their barking and some even chased me a bit.

After I got away from that street in a whole different section of my run, I was attacked by three other dogs. They were far enough away to not be affected by the actions of the first set of dogs. These three were not large, but they came at me biting. None landed a tooth on me, but not because they did not try. One of them stopped biting at my legs and just concentrated on the New Balance 435s that were kicking him in the jaw. He almost got a piece of my toe!

I have had the street blocked by a pack of 14 dogs before and walked my way through them. They typically are not at all aggressive. But this group yesterday will make me be more cautious next time. Unfortunately, those two roads are right on a couple of my running routes.

México’s Next President

Does México have its next president? I hope so. Felipe Calderón (my candidate of choice) seems to have won the election. The first official count was completed yesterday and Calderón won by .58% (not much). He also won in the initial unofficial count.

Obredor is calling for another count, saying that the first count was unjust. I don’t mind a recount. I think that is the prudent thing to do when it is this close. And, maybe Obredor will come out the leader the next count (which will require at least 1 more count). But, crying that the count was unfair, illegal and whatever other slanderous remark you can add, is uncalled for. Obredor is not helping his cause by acting like a 10 year old in school. He should demand a recount because it is a close election, not because he thinks it was handled illegally.

I read an article this morning saying that the election was “stolen” by Calderón. As if he did something shady to make it happen. What is shady is that the PRI party stayed in power for 71 years in México. It was a dictatorship in which no one, that I have ever met anyway, felt held fair elections until the year 2000. At which time President Vicente Fox won. By the way, that party only won 22% of this year’s votes. Maybe the people really did not like the dictatorial rule by the PRI.
The article I read was comparing this election in México to the 2000 US Presidential election in which Bush beat Al Gore. Of course everyone remembers the recounts over and over. Which, by the way, Bush won every time. This article states: “Lopez Obrador and his backers understand full well that they must now use all means necessary to reverse this hijacking of democracy. Progressives in the United States and across the world must lend their voices to Lopez Obrador’s cause, and national, state and local governments should be pushed to pass resolutions demanding that the Mexican government launch an internationally-supervised recount.”

I am not at all against a recount. But don’t do it because you have to whine and say things are illegal (who in their right mind thinks the political landscape in México is completely legal?). Do it because you want to see a fair election. But, of course, make sure the re-count is done in a legal manner as well.