Either due to air quality, heat, or the fact that I have been a slacker for the past couple of weeks (between houseguests and other obligations), when the GRD and I went for a run this morning I just sucked. Had to walk up all the hills, which is unusual--often, I have to walk up the big one, but it's big, what can I say? Still, I needed to get back on the wagon, and in that regard it was a success. My plan for the rest of the morning is to hit the famer's market in West Hartford and then head on over to the gym and swim. Then come back here and work on some of this reading, since I appear to be still waiting for my brain to regenerate.

However, "Wind-Up Boogeyman" is complete and just waiting for a last round of notes from my Shadow Unit compadres, and I'm beginning to contemplate getting a head start on Grail.

Soon, I need to start lining up the background reading for Smile and for the untitled second-world-fantasy-with-conquering-empire, the one that takes place in the same world as "Love Among the Talus" and Bone & Jewel Creatures. There will be a lot of background reading. I think I had better get some of these other books out of the way first. Like another metric butt-ton of criminology, for example. And maybe some of the WWII stuff.

So this morning I got up, did push-ups (I'm going to try the hundred push-ups thing, starting officially next week), took the dog for a 1.5 mile run (19:55, yes, I am a slow coach, though it is mostly uphill), and now I am about to go meet ashacat at the gym. I feel like such a jock, Or I would, if I could do more than seven push-ups. La.

I went out climbing at Ragged Mountain yesterday with TBRE and The Jeff and some guys from the gym. Basically, I sucked. We went after work and there's a forty-minute drive and a twenty-minute hike in, so we weren't rigged until six, and it got too dark to climb around eight thirty. Everything rigged was way too hard for me, and I spent most of the night belaying. I am really disappointed to have missed a climbing night. Really, even in despite of not really loving climbing outdoors (though Wolf Rock has proven to me that I do, in fact, kind of enjoy climbing on granite: it's fucking traprock I hate with a fucking passion, and o hai there I live in Connecticut, Land Of Traprock) I'm starting to think it's just not worth it to me to go outside on school nights. Because I wind up feeling like I haven't done a damned thing except sit in dirt and get eaten by bugs for three hours.

Ahem. I guess I'm venting.

However, the company was awesome, and the day was beautiful, so it was a win in other ways, even if I don't feel like I got any exercise. (And I won't get to climb again until next week, because TBRE and The Jeff are in Vermont this weekend for a caving thing, so no chance of Friday or Sunday climbing--unless I steal cristalia and make her come bouldering on Friday.)

Speaking of which, I may be a little absent for a bit. Page proofs for By the Mountain Bound have landed, and as of 2:00 PM this afternoon, so will cristalia, who I am picking up at the Hartford Train Station. Plan then is thai food and Evil Sexy Leonard Cohen at the beautiful Palace Theatre in beautiful Waterbury Connecticut. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! *faints*

I will have to be restrained from throwing fedoras at the stage. Not that they're reach: we're in the nosebleed seats.

Then Friday is my mom's birthday, which means cristalia gets to come shopping with us, and then, Saturday, we get to take cristalia to Manhattan for the first time, which I am really looking forward to.

And then next week stillsostrange and her boy land, and there will be further mandatory fun. (Seriously, if you want a minivacation in Southern New England, this is the time of year to do it--unless you can make it here in October.) *g*

So, um. Be good while I am gone.

This morning the GRD and I went for a run, so I could earn my carbs for breakfast and he could continue getting in shape for the ring.

Apparently, the Shadow Unit message board community is embarking upon a fitness challenge, which means that by January 1, I need to be able to run a mile and a half in 13:59 or better. Since I'm currently doing a little better than a 12 minute mile, (and my best recent time for a mile and a half is 18:58) this will require some fairly serious work on my part. *

But that's besides the point. The most amusing thing about this whole deal is that I am such a slowcoach on uphills that the GRD doesn't even break into a trot to keep up with me. Just his herding-dog slink (and he has a most wonderful herding-dog slink, when he wants it) which makes him look like a drifting stormcloud intent on mayhem.

Especially when he's stalking squirrels.

---

*And, like the climbing and hiking and yoga everything else athletic in my life, it will be easier if I am hauling fewer pounds up those hills. So I'm back on the no-refined-carbs-except-after-exercise program.** Alas! Alackaday! Life is hard.

**Current research seems to indicate that it doesn't matter what you eat, really, for weight gain or weight loss: the important factor is the calories. However, if I avoid the white flour and white rice, my blood sugar stays a lot more stable, and I don't raven nearly as much, or get dizzy-hungry or frail-feeling, so I don't mind the calorie restriction*** very much.

***Calorie restriction, for me, is somewhere in the range of 1800-2200 calories a day: I burn somewhere between 2800-3500, depending. I do seem to do better with dropping weight if I vary my daily caloric intake a lot, including a day every week or so where I eat the moon.)

Still going pretty easy on my hand, but I did two new unrated routes on the slab last night (I like smearing. I'm good at smearing) and resent two old routes and a problem. Felt like I had the juice to do another one, but five is a pretty good night, the gym was crowded, and I wanted to come home and watch Criminal Minds. (Yes, I know I'm behind on summaries. The next new ep isn't until the middle of January. I'll catch up. I seem to be writing this book right now, and don't have the ~3 hours per episode it takes me to do it properly.)

Seems like the snowpocalypse is scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday, so I am going to try to eat something and get out for a run in a minute here, since I suspect trying to drive to yoga class tomorrow morning with rush hour +snow would be pretty dumb. Otoh, maybe I can get out in the park before it gets too heavy.

Then come home and peck away at TStM until it's time for archery.

I got through the first revision pass last night/this morning around 2:30 am. So it's just one more pass through before I can hand it off to arcaedia and casacorona, and see what they see. I can tell that this is one of the books I learned to write while writing, because the third part needed much less work than the first two parts. Mostly, vacuuming out reflexive sentimentality. That stuff will creep in. The first two parts still need some structural work, especially since it's such a loosely structured novel. I can see precursor elements to The Stratford Man in here. A lot of time passes.

Also, when I wrote this, I was still firmy in the grip of the unnecessary prepositional phrase and direct article, and there was a good deal of surgical removal of linguistic scaffolding.

Oh, I cut so many words yesterday. Three whole scenes, around twenty pages, because I decided how to do those things better in the context of the narrative. Well, I still have to figure out how to do one of them, but the way I was trying to do it just wasn't working. Wolf boy, why must you be such a problem child?

Okay, now for food and exercise.

254.3 miles to Rauros. We're still paddling down a broad river under a gray sky.

The city of Hartford from the slopes of Prospect Hill, in Elizabeth Park. 4 miles this morning, of which I ran maybe 2 3/4. It was a nice cool moist morning, and once I slowed down for a breather, I started just enjoying the walk.

The first review of Seven for a Secret is in, from Green Man Review.

And now I have to go file my copy for Tor. 'scuse please.

frost on antique roses, this morning in the Elizabeth Park old rose garden.

4.5 miles this morning, of which I ran about four miles--and the first two and a half without a break. Then I walked about a half mile and finished the last mile and a half in intervals. It was cold and beautiful, and I badly need a shower. It was a good run, except for the part where I still have post-nasal drip and kept gagging. (TMI)

Now it's time to get cleaned up, and eat something, and then get back to work until it's time to go climbing. Yes, I'm insane.

Still not a hundred percent, but I did get out and do 4.5 miles this morning in about an hour, though I only ran about half of it. It took me the first mile to find my stride, and my wind is still kinda cruddy. Also, the right ankle started fussing.

I did, however, discover that Einsturzende Neubauten is ideal music for running. There's something about people shrieking in German over the throb of power tools that's very inspirational when it comes to keeping up the pace. Also, inspirational? Mirkwood spiders.

They're taking off the roof of the burned-out house across the street, much to the cat's fascination.

330.1 miles to Rauros. Trudge, trudge, trudge.

338.5 miles to Rauros.

Did four miles again this morning, but I only managed to run three of it; it's only 53, but apparently the additional 18 degrees makes all the difference in the world to my meat puppet; we'd prefer it in the thirties, thanks. I like my new running shoes, which are a not-terribly-expensive and very light and sproingy pair of Sauconys, which are mostly for street running but have a little tread for trail running as need be.

Today, I have to make a bunch of phone calls (Argh. Avoidant! Hate hate hate.) and do the last read-over of "King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree," which has now completed its editing process. Also, I need to open up "Mongoose" and look at it and see if it's grown any more stuff.

That's like work, I guess.

It was 35 degrees this morning when I got outside for my run, and I saw the effects--everything is so much easier when it's cold out, and I'm so much more comfortable in my skin. Because I was feeling so strong, I decided to see if I could add an extra mile to my route, which took me through the rose garden a little after dawn while the frost was still on the grass. It looked like this, only without the crappy cell phone pixellation:



Worth getting up at six and putting on your running shoes.

For a little more New England In October Porn, here's another blurry cellphone shot, which I took when ashacat and I went for a walk in the woods on Monday:



I am so glad I live here.

Anyway, I am feeling pretty smug, because I ran the whole four miles, barring a brief walk at about the two-and-a-half mile mark while I got my wind back. That was pretty awesome. I feel awesome. It was one of those days when the months and months of hard work pays off, and everything works. I guess my next step is improving my time, isn't it? Because four miles is enough distance. (I might move it up to five when I'm running faster.)

And now I am sitting here in my sweaty underwear and not even feeling particularly wiped out. Score!

Also, I have a loaf of bread rising in the robot (I will take it out and bake it in the oven, when it has fluffed up a bit more) and I have plans to meet with kayselkiemoon this afternoon for a road trip to New Hampshire, where we will be attending a concert by Mr. Andrew Bird.

Also, cutest photo ever.

349.5 miles to Rauros Falls.

What a swell morning.

Memo to me: sleeping in until 7 or 7:30 is counterproductive. Get up at 6. If I get up at 6, I can run at sunrise, and when it's 42 degrees, my body is incredibly more effective than it is two hours later, when it's 60 degrees.

There's just no way around it: I am a cold-adapted life form. This morning, I did three miles on cruise control (around a fifteen-sixteen minute mile) without even pausing, and felt like I was good for another three (I walked in the door eight minutes ago and my pulse is already back under 90), but I decided to quit while I was ahead--because three miles was my goal, and it seems like I should celebrate that with some sort of reward--and because I am climbing tonight, and it seemed silly to kick my ass that totally beforehand.

Instead, I feel good. Really good. Thank you, approaching autumnal equinox. Thank you, cooler weather. Thank you, thank you, thank you, angle of insolation.

God, I hate summer. But this--this is perfect. It could be like this always.

Tomorrow morning, I guess we try for those four miles. Which means levering ourselves out of bed at 6 am again, but hey. That's what the detonator is for... (Also: must keep running at VP. No matter how hungover I am when pnh, tnh, and Jim Macdonald are done with me.... also. Bear. No sunburn this year, you silly twit.)

In other news, Bette Midler? Still awesome. (via oursin)

And John Scalzi, also awesome from the archives. (And I'm not just saying that because I'm sleeping with him next week. Okay, okay, in the non-euphemistic sense: we're roomies at Viable Paradise. And now I get to say I slept with Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. Now if we can just get China Mieville to teach at VP, I could have the shaven-headed SFF writer roomie hat-trick....)

376 miles to Rauros, and the Breaking of the Fellowship. I am taking my last sight of the light of Lórien.

Well, I goofed up with my cellphone stopwatch on the way back, so I don't have a time for my third mile, but it was 13:30 for the first mile, which is a net improvement of about three minutes from when I started. And I did the second mile, which I walked--not particularly in any hurry and with a water break in the middle--in about 17 minutes. (There is a special Hell for people who spit in drinking fountains.) I think the third mile was around 13 too, maybe 12:30, as it's downhill on the way back and I was cruising along at a pretty good clip for most of it. I think I get to log this as "Running" in Fitday rather than "Jogging." Well, the running part of it, anyway.

17.8 miles to Lothlorien. Only 8.2 more miles to where the blindfolds come off. By the end of the day, we'll have met Galadriel and what's-his-name.

For the record, I started my walk to Mordor on January 15, 2007. I have been walking for 595 days and averaging 1.5 miles a day.

And yes, I have a spreadsheet.

Interestingly, the excess sleep demand is leveling off at between 6.5 and 7 hours a night, so my body must be adapting to the extra workload, finally. And I'm starting to shed a few pounds instead of just packing on muscle and getting heavier, which is indeed, making the climbing easier. Go, simple physics. It's easier to haul 241 pounds up a wall than 247.

(For those of you interested in such things, according to Fitday, my caloric outlay for the day is likely to be around 2,659 calories. If I weighed around 155 (which I have not since the week after I had acute mononucleosis in college) it would be around 2,275 calories. 1100 calorie-a-day diet sound like such a good idea to anyone? No, me neither.)

An interesting side effect of sleeping a little more is that I am remembering more of my dreams. For the first time in... well, as long as I can remember, actually, though I assume I slept more as a teenager/when I was running in high school. This morning, I woke up from a partuclarly nice one in which I rudely/apologetically left a fancy dinner to take a phone call from Agent Jenn, who was calling to inform me that the Promethean Age books had been optioned by a movie company I can't remember, and which may not really exist.

I was pretty disappointed when I woke up, I tell you what.

No climbing Monday, so I may call it a recovery day unless a hike materializes. Climbing Wednesday, though, and I should be rested for it. *g*

And on that note I must shower, dress, grocery shop, and pick up ice cream for netcurmudgeon's birthday partee. Be good while I'm gone.

It never fails. Got out for a walk this morning and solved plot problems in both "Wind-Up Boogeyman" and "Smoke & Mirrors."

Thank you, feets.

And now, choclit cake.

First off, thanks so much to everybody who popped by Amazon to say something about the Stratford Man books. That looks a lot less naked. *g* (I suspect my quota of Amazon reviews suffers because people just come over here and give me what-for.... the perils of leaving the ivory tower! ...oh, who needs an ivory tower anyway?)

Went for a run this morning, which is crazed because I am going climbing again tonight--three days in a row, and possibly also tomorrow. This is a sign that my stamina is improving. Heck yes. In fact, I don't actually feel totally slagged out, despite the fact that it was sunny and oh so bright, and I have a headache now. The hat helps, but not enough--the yellow face, it burns us. (Of course, now that I'm back inside, the promised clouds have rolled in, and the forecast is showers and scattered boom!) Soon, I will even have the energy to stagger into the shower and flood cold water down my body.

Anyway, 33.3 miles to Lothlorien. It's only about a day's walk, as the Hobbit trundles. Probably take me another month to get there.... I really have to not get sunburned this year on Martha's Vineyard so I can get up and go for a run in the mornings. Also, remember to pack a swimsuit this year, Bear. And goggles. I may have to buy goggles; I think my last pair gave up the ghost after some years of exposure to the rubber-destroying aridity and skin-peeling chlorination of All Things Las Vegas.

I probably should climb as much as I can while I can--I'm missing next week because the gym is closed for reno (whole new front room! Of course, they are taking down three of my favorite routes, and the only 5.8 I have a hope in hell of sending, and the 5.8 on the skywall that I really wanted to climb someday... but alas. Change is good, right?) unless we can either get our butts outside or get to the smaller gym in Manchester, or both. And then I will be missing the week of my birthday because I'll be at Viable Paradise (trying not to get sunburned.)

I shall endeavor to think of this as Valuable Recovery Time. Besides, a week off isn't so bad. It's after two weeks without rocks that I start to lose it.

Goals for today--I have to start reading a ginormous graphic novel compendium for a review, and I must sign a whole bunch of things and then send them on to the next victim. Also, some paperwork. (Yes, that same paperwork. I am avoidant lass!)

Things to get done by the end of September, if I am lucky:

Finish Bone & Jewel Creatures (Come on, Bear. It's like two more scenes.)
Finish "The Tricks of London"
Finish "Smoke & Mirrors"
Finish "Mongoose."

But none of those things are likely to happen today, or even this week, I'm suspecting. Though "Smoke & Mirrors" might be talking to me most, because of course it's the one on the longest deadline.

I've actually got most of the end of that one written. I just need to write the first two thirds.

Oh, and I need to call Honda and bring the Moby Smurfberry in for maintenance and an oil change. La.

49.5 miles to Lothlorien. I actually ran the whole three miles this morning--easier when it's overcast and 64 degrees, I tell you. Oh, I cannot wait until autumn.

Today's other assigned tasks are getting to the post office and UPS, and practicing guitar. And doing laundry before the laundry-monster reforms, like something out of Alan Moore, and wants to know what I think I'm doing to the planetary ecology.

Well, alas, I stank on ice climbing this week, and last night brought with it a lovely bout of insomnia, so I didn't exactly get up to go for a run this morning. I think, given my general air of physical ineptitude for the past few days, that I will take next week off from climbing--easy to justify, as my climbing partners are at a caving event most of the week--and just try to run and do archery and yoga. And yeah, crazy funhouse world in which running and yoga count as giving the meatpuppet a break, but I remember this from my kickboxing days: there's exercise and there's exercise.

And I was 29 then, and my yoga instructor back in those days was an 80-pound triathlete.

If I'm having plummetty mood problems, I reseve the right to go boulder a bit and see if that helps, but otherwise, the meatpuppet can take this opportunity to work on fixing the tendons in its left elbow, right? Which reminds me, time for More Ice.

Also, a break might help the toenail I knocked off finish growing back without growing into the toe, because you know? Running and climbing, both hard on the toenails. Though I don't want to lose the progress I've made, either running or climbing. Three miles, here I come. Also, I'm nearly to Lothlorien, which is a bit of encouragement all in its own.

I'd claim today as a Day Off Work, except I plan to do Administrative Stuff (hopefully those envelopes will show up today) and do some reading for truepenny. Also, I want to look at a poem I started on Sunday, one involving the ears of horses, because apparently after a hiatus of approximately ten years, I am a poet again. How weird is that? I suspect my brain needed those muscles for learning to write narrative in the meantime, and it's only now giving them back.

We're modifying our PLoM efforts, the meatpuppet and me, to include some calorie restriction, and preliminary results are that, although we're feeling a bit sharp-set, the current diet seems sustainable as long as the farmer's market produce and tinned soup holds out. (And you know, we get a couple of meals a week where we can eat anything we want. Also, at my size and build and level of activity, calorie restriction is somewhere between 1500-2200 calories a day, depending on where in the cycle we are, so we're not exactly talking starvation diet.) Come on, meatpuppet. Every pound of stored energy you burn is a pound you do not have to haul up those sodding overhangs! Think how nice that will feel! P.S., eat your soybeans, they're good for you.

Item the first: Tiny cute computer is tiny and cute. I have gotten all my habitual software (WinAmp, assorted Popcap timewasters, the Zune manager, Semagic, Electric Sheep, Eudora, etc.) and am halfway through the semi-endless process of moving my music and other files over. The hard drive is already groaning in anticipation of the 60+ gigs of music I plan on upholstering it with. Good thing I'm not a gamer.... 

(The new laptop, for those who are interested in the technical specs, is a 14.1" wide-aspect Dell Latitude D630 core 2 2.0 GHz with 160 gig hard drive--something like double the capacity of the previous machine at half the weight and energy costs. It has a nice big keyboard and it runs XP cheerfully. I had originally fallen in love with the XPS, which brings the shiny and has a bigger hard drive, but that one only allows for Vista and no.

Also, it's netcurmudgeon's experience--and mine--that the business laptops, though they have less chrome, are more durable. So I am now the proud owner of Daphne the Laptop, at about two hundred dollars more than I paid for Ethel the HP in 2003. God, I love Moore's Law as it applies to my personal electronics. (Yes, you do deduce correctly from these data that the desktop is named Phred and the Zune is named Ginger. Because dancy! Ahem.)

Item the second: my climbing is getting better. My strength/weight ratio still sucks, but it sucks less (not because I've lost any weight: rather, I continue to gain slowly, though perhaps I have topped out around 245, and maybe now that my body has built a completely unreasonable amount of muscle (I've gained twenty pounds in the last ten months while dropping a shirt size and half a jeans size) it will consent to giving up some of the dead weight. Anyway, it's on cereal, sandwiches, soup, and salads until further notice... and maybe the occasional cookie. Because dammit, I want to climb better still. (The good news is, I have been doing all this work in the equivalent of a sixty pound pack, so if that weight does come off and I get down to a nice sensible 170 or so, I will be flying up those overhangs.)

Anyway, as I was saying, strength, balance, and recovery time are all improving, and I think I'm actually back to what I consider a reasonable level of fitness for the first time since 2001. Yay! I've climbed three days this week--Sunday, Monday, and last night, and still managed to go out for a three mile run this morning, in the driving rain, getting soaked to the skin in my new ugly Prana stretchy shorts. I swear, I am 50% more physically competent in the rain. What's up with that?

I started a 5.8 on Monday--couldn't stick the transition over the lip, but I got up on it, which is more than I have ever done on a 5.8 before, and I'm getting to the point where there are a couple of 5.7s that I can send reliably, though I have to dog on the rope a bit on both of them. (There's another one I'm going to try on Monday--or Saturday, if it's still rainy/wet and we don't get to climb out doors.) Yesterday, I did six routes, if you count the bouldering route I made four tries at before I just said "fuckit" and cheated on the last pusbucketing move, which I cannot quite swing.

...Okay, I also rainbowed a bit on #6, but it has a big mantle move and I was le tired by then. Sewing machine legs and the whole deal. (Rainbowing is when you cheat on a route by using hand/footholds intended for other routes. Mantling is when you have to press down on something at chest level to get your feet up higher: it's hard. Sewing machine legs is.... well, self-explanatory if you have ever seen a sewing machine. *g*)

But that last route I'm still proud of, because I used to thrash terribly on the bottom part, and now I'm sailing up that bit. I think any other gym would call it a 5.8, but Prime Climb is special. Their 5.5s are like 5.6s or easy 5.7s I've climbed in other gyms...

Anyway, visible progress. Which makes me think I may someday attain my goal of being able to do 5.10s. And I have to remember to ice my left elbow and take the NSAIDs today, because I do not want the tendinitis getting worse, thanks.

It's nice having a sport again. It's been a long time. And my last sport did not have couches.

Item the third: Tomorrow I have to revise "The Red in the Sky is Our Blood." And do laundry.  Saturday is climbing and maybe late lunch at Tapas with The Jeff and Alisa and Tanya. Sunday, to Fall River for an AD&D game. Monday, nose to the grindstone again, as my post-Readercon recovery is pretty much over by then and I have Deadlines To Hit.

Today I am having a goof-off and play with computers day, and then I am going to archery. It has occurred to me that in other jobs, you get, you know, days off. And that maybe I should look into that idea.

Item the fourth: Lone Star Stories, the 'zine with the fastest turnaround time on the block, will be publishing my maudlin Tam Lin poem "Seven Steeds," which some of you may remember from when I posted the very rough draft to this blog last year.

Item the fifth: Dora Goss is smrt.


...I really love this little computer.

64 miles to Lothlorien.

Today is the pub day for Ink & Steel. You can read a sneak preview here:

prologue

act I, scene i

act I, scene ii

act I, scene iii

Available at your preferred online retailer or at a fine brick-and-mortar bookseller near you.

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It was 66 and 88% when I left the house and now it is 76 and 76%, 45 minutes later. (Temperatures adjusted for heat stress.) But I still dragged my sorry self out of bed at 6 am (I meant to get up at 5, but the bed won that round) and went for a 2.5 mile run.

I'm pretty durned proud of myself, too, because I ran the first mile and a half without stopping, and the only times I was in discomfort was at the top of the two biggish hills. Other than that, smooth and easy and no respiratory or muscular problems. Then I flopped for a few minutes (Until I could no longer feel my heartbeat), stretched for a few minutes, and ran the last mile home pretty easily. I got tired in the last fifth of a mile, but it was muscular tired, not cardio, and I pushed through it until the last tenth, which I walked to cool down.

I guess it's time to add another half mile to the route. And get up earlier. Gahhhhhhhhh.

95 miles to Lothlorien. 14 miles to the cave troll. Really, could you not just listen to Sean Bean say that all day?

---

In other stuff, last night was a good climbing night, though I only did walls I've done before. A 5.5, three 5.6s, and a 5.7. These were not new routes, but I learned things on all of them. And I have improved, which is kind of exciting.

They took down that black route I had just finally finished, and the blue one that has been kicking my ass for ages.

Wednesday, I want to try the pink one on the barrel vault again (My new project wall, because they took my other project walls away), try the new unrated red one they replaced the deadly blue route with, and work on the spearmint-stripe one that I have done several times but cannot do consistently.

truepenny and I went to the Madison climbing gym yesterday, where I think the walls are rated easier than in my home gym. Anyway, I sent three 5.7s without too much trouble. One of them was an on-sight, and what a cool route that is; it's all fiddly balance and technique and not very much strength at all. The overhangs, I don't do so well on, because of that strength/weight ratio issue (boo), but I'm pretty darned proud of myself. Also did two easier routes, probably 5.5s or so. Fun!

Yesterday and today I went running along the swollen banks of the mighty Yahara river. Yesterday was more intervally, but today... today made me happy. I found third gear, and just kind of cruised along merrily, my body trotting along the path easily and well within itself, without gasping for breath or aching or screaming for help.  So that was pretty awesome.

106.6 miles to Lothlorien.

Aso, we went to the Henry Vilas zoo yesterday, where we got to meet an orangutan who had come up to the glass and was shading his eyes with his hands to get a better look at the monkeys running around inside. We also watched Henry, the zoo's elderly and diabolical lion, enjoy himself by tricking the monkeys into running back and forth between the two observation points beside his habitat. He would walk over to one, get up close to the glass, and roar, vociferously. And then, when all the children had runrunrun down to that end, he would pace deliberately back to the other end of the habitat and commence being picturesque there--bouncing up rocks or stretching against trees.

Yeah. Cats like to screw with the monkeys.