Tuesday, June 30, 2009

high clouds drifter

Got a bit of a late start this morning so it was already heating up by the time I made it out for a run. I had to get out there, though, because it had been nine days since I’d been on a run – last week turned into sort of a rest week.

Luckily, we’re having some interesting weather patterns right now. High clouds are keeping the temps from soaring too high. The skies remind me of a cross between rocky mountain afternoon thunderheads and coastal drifters.

What this means to me is that we’ve just entered a new rain season. By my definition, the season ends with June’s drizzle and starts with the first big drops of summer. It’s hard to be sure what the skies are telling me, but that’s what it feels like today. That leaves us with 43.4 centimeters (17”) of rain for last season – not bad considering that we got very little precipitation through late winter and spring.

Seasonal Rain:

2004/2005: 143.5cm
2005/2006: 66.7 cm
2006/2007: 15.9 cm
2007/2008: 59.5 cm
2008/2009: 43.4 cm

These are actual measurements taken from outside my backdoor. As you can see, there is no normal rain season here. Even if you looked at the past 120 or so years of available data there’s no obvious pattern (or so I’ve heard.)

The running legs felt really solid today. I got in an Arroyo Nine. The week off was probably a good thing. I had a dream last night in which I seemed to tap into a bit of my inner animal and I think that was a positive force on my running day, too. Towards the end of my run, my stride shifted a little and my speed increased. It all felt very natural and powerful. My feet seemed to be landing further to the side than normal – drifting out near hip width rather than returning back to the imaginary centerline. And I was itching to get rid of my shoes… to run barefoot... one of these days…

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