A lovely shade of green

Long and slow aerobic exercise is a better expectorant than guaifenesin (aka Mucinex) any day of the week.  Kept Sunday's mileage to 12.5.  Was much easier to pull over and hack out a glob or two in the woods of the Palisades than to do the same in Central Park.  Usually I need to bend over to facilitate the process, or at least get level with my hands on my knees, but I've been able to clear things while staying vertical the last two days.  Not the prettiest sound, but whatever.  It works.  The green globs pair well with the light blue shirt I had on today.

Two and a half weeks until until the next big race.  That's 18 days, to be exact.  With the work hours of my affiliation and my morning preference I've grown accustomed to 75 to 80 degree weather with a decent amount of humidity.  Struck me today as I set out at 8am, rather than my usual 6am, that my race estimates place me as finishing at 11am.  And, I'm wondering what the shade situation is going to be.  My mom found out that a PTA colleague is running the half marathon while her husband is also running the 50k.  Apparently they drove the route, said it was very scenic and would hopefully help the mental portions of the race.  But what about shade?  How far back are the trees?  How often does the sun travel straight down the road?  This is the map according to the participant guide from the North Face race website:

TNF Endurance Challenge Kansas City 50k route

50k elevation profile

North-south and east-west travel look much more similar than I originally thought.  The elevation is not much worry.  I'm actually glad that it varies, as truly flat courses give me the worst cramps and boredom.  Aide stations are available every 2ish miles, but I'm still going to run with a bottle.  I need to decide if I'm going to wear a shirt/tank or not.  However much it feels silly to run wearing a sports bra and biker-style shorts, the issue is avoiding problems.  Whereas common distances for races require physical preparation with a little bit of a mental game plan, ultras require the trifecta of physical, mental (monkey-brain hits somewhere around mile 20-24, which is why clear course marking is uber important), and logistical preparation.  (And this race is nothing compared to even the "easy" 100milers!)

Take today's run, 8 miles including four 10-minute intervals around the variable Central Park loop from 8-9am.  Half way through I thought to myself "Gee, this shirt isn't doing half bad with the sweat.  I might be able to stay decent for the race."  Then 5 minutes from the end everything was saturated just shy of the point where the sweat drains down into my socks and shoes.  Today was only 1 hour; the race will likely be 5 hours, maybe more if its super hot and more walking is necessary.  That's a loooooong time for your clothes to hang heavy, lightning fast quick-dry synthetic materials or not.

There comes a point where I can't stand it any more, so I take off the shirt and tuck it into the back of my waistband.  Considering there is no place to drop stuff along the way (unless I see a family member willing to accept a shirt looking like it was just pulled from the salty Dead Sea), that means I'm effectively running with a flaccid tail that continues to collect and then drip sweat.  On the other hand, if it is super sunny with no shade to mitigate, then my skin might want the coverage.  Ever see images of runners crossing the Sahara?  Long sleeves and hats with a back flap hanging over their neck.  I plan to use sunscreen regardless.  Once the race is 10 days out then I can start stalking the weather.  In the mean time I'll work on my best misty-light-rain-with-full-cloud-cover dance.  Here's hoping July was the climax of the summer *knock on wood*.

These days I'm also planning an upcoming move.  I'll travel a whopping 20 blocks (1 mile) north, but am currently playing the purge game.  The kittehs find the piles of clothes most interesting to lay on, so I have to be careful to keep things closed up in bags if I plan to donate them.  I bought the little monsters a cat bed so they can get their stink on it now and have something familiar at the new place to help them adjust.  Sadie hogs it, making bold power plays.  Wondering if I need two.  At least when I bought it from PetCo it ended up only costing $14 after taxes rather than the listed $24.99 before taxes, and its machine washable (a big factor helping me reduce bed choices).  One of few places where having those silly little cards meant to help the business track traffic and purchases has immediately offered actual benefit to me.

Anyways, the cats have been at their shenanigans and I have been home to see more of them.  I also discovered my digital point and shoot has a video setting for "miniature," meaning a shallow dept of field weighted to the middle of the frame and using 1/10 of the normal amount of frames per second.  Kind of fun, though I'm still working out the kinks, such as minimizing camera movement to reduce audience nausea with the sped-up feed.

Fighting over rights to lay on my CPI, which is my midterm and final "exam" of an evaluation from the affiliation.  Notice how I'm so very *sarcasm* concerned with possible damage to it.  Sadie manages to throw Merus off the bed, so I think she won this round:

Merus happily walked into the not-quite canvas sack when I looked away.  They LOVE canvas, and will lay on anyone's book bag if and when mistakenly left on the floor.  Sadie got jealous, never realizing that there was a second bag right behind them.  I intervened when Merus started backing Sadie into a corner; I think she (Merus) got her revenge:

Sadie likes to hang over the edge (and, as noted above, atop the clothes to be donated soon); Merus like to play dead:

Hot afternoon sleepiness.  Silly kitties: