Famous Friday: Run to Win

I have been reading the Run to Win website for over a year. Blaine, the author, focuses on running news and ways to improve your personal training. Most of the time it deals with running itself, but he also covers great information for cross training.

Recently he posted about what to do when dogs chase you. He also gives book reviews somewhat regularly. When he gave away a copy of Coast to Coast a year and a half ago is when I started keeping up with the site. I did not win the book, but consequently bought it and wrote a review of it myself.

Check out Run to Win for the latest track and distance running news as well as great information to keep you on the road doing what you enjoy.

The rain gave us a break!

Today we had a big activity planned. Nothing really important, only that we wanted to get together with some friends at a park. If we got rained out, it would just mean that we would try and schedule it again in the future. But, we had been psyched up for this for a couple of weeks.

With all the rain we had been having this week, we were concerned that we would not be able to eat watermelon and throw a football together. However, it did not rain today and only got up to 90 degrees. When we got to the park at 5:00 this evening it was a nice 84 degrees. It cooled on down to 81 by the time we left, four hours later.

There was one complication with the rain though. This is a two level park and has a small lake in it with lots of running trails. You can go up the hills to the upper level which is even with the ground level of the area, or go down to what looks like an area that had been strip mined years before. The lower level was totally flooded! It was a huge lake. The difference in the two levels is probably 20 feet and the water level was up maybe 5 feet higher than normal.

We had a good time and I got to have a short chat with one of the elite runners from the area. This park is a very popular training spot for runners. I saw Joel running for the first 2 hours we were there. He ran with different people at different paces and was doing some sprints during this time too. He ran the 10K with me this weekend and won in a time that was 21 minutes faster than my time. This is the first time I had met him and he invited me to train with them and their coach. He assured me that there were old people who trained with them as well and that I could find a pace group that would fit my speed.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

We have had 32″ of rain since Sunday morning! There is usually a pattern to the rain during rainy season. We expect it to rain a couple of hours in the late afternoon every day. Previous to Sunday we had not had any rain in 2 weeks.

Sunday it rained just about all day. At least off and on most of the day. Monday it just rained in the afternoon. Tuesday the rain was torrential. After we dropped our son off at his Tae Kwon Do class, we went to the grocery store. It rained so hard that I could not carry on a phone conversation while in the store. It was just too loud pounding on the roof of the store. It then sprinkled on and off all night. It was even raining this morning when we got up. That makes 2 days this week that it has rained in the morning, which is very rare.

It has not gotten over 90 all week. Sunday’s high was only 84. That is very nice. Our projected highs over the next few days will be between 86 and 92. Sweet!

My Thought Spot 15: Napoleonic System of Law

I chose a different outdoor location to record this episode that I have used in the past. I moved to my side yard. The birds don’t seem to be as noisy over there. There was also less traffic noise. Enjoy.

Show Notes

Customer Service is not entirely dead

Last night we went to a taco joint that we have not been to in more than a year. We used to go there once every 2 or 3 weeks when we lived on that side of town. It is one of those places we can go and feed the whole family for $10. Out of our bill last night, right at half the cost of the meal was for our soft drinks. Soft drinks are usually expensive at restaurants here.

The waiter not only remembered us, but when we ordered the tacos for our son he remembered that it was to be without onions and that our boy drinks orange Fanta. Since my wife and I usually ordered something different just about every time we went in there, there was no way he could have remembered what we would want. But we were pleased to know that there is someone who still takes pride in learning his customers and what they like.

I am very critical of service industry people who have no interest in serving their clientèle. It is always a pleasure to see someone who cares and takes pride in their work.