Running
Just another rainy run today… 🏃🏻♂️
(13 days to go)
Prespective...
Earlier this week where I live a runner, Mike Elhard, who was going out on a 20 mile training run for the Chicago Marathon went missing on Monday morning. He wasn’t running at night or even during really hot weather as it was 10am and the day was actually cooler than normal. Once they realized he was missing the local police and residences searched that late afternoon and into the evening on roads and paths near his house and routes he frequently took. Unfortunately, he was found dead Tuesday just off a sidewalk in some brush. The police said there was no signs of foul play but nothing else has been released.
As I was running yesterday, I couldn’t shake the thought out of my mind as I too am a runner mostly running by myself during the week. I am fortunate enough that my longer runs I have been running with a friend in the area.
Even though I never knew Mike, I want to think we might have crossed paths at some point along the trails and probably gave a nod, or wave or maybe just smiled at each other.
Mike was only 39 and probably in pretty good shape seeing how he was going to run a Marathon in a couple weeks as well and was out on his 20 mile long run. I am only 40 and it really puts things in perspective how short life can be sometimes. Rest In Peace fellow runner.
Luckily I didn’t get rained on this morning but it was nice out…. Until I got a text from my son that he missed the bus 🤦♂️. Let’s just say I ran the last half faster than I had planned and wasn’t happy about it 😒 🏃🏻♂️
Let the taper begin… Overcast morning run today with views of the Twin Cities while we circled the chain of lakes (21 days to go)
Getting spoiled now with this nicer weather for running. For picture purposes I sometimes like clouds in the sky but I will take the clear blue skies today 🏃🏻♂️
Another beautiful day for a run today but headed another direction from the old rail trail of the Minnesota River Bluffs Regional LRT Trail (that’s a mouthful) 🏃🏻♂️
Nice thing about everyone gone durning the day to school is now I have more flexibility during my days as work is the only focus. That also lets me run mid day when it is light out and what a beautiful day it was! 🏃🏻♂️
Spent a short amount of time today exploring some new trails in town. Pretty sure we ran across 7 of these bridges in a 1 mile stretch…🏃🏻♂️
Beautiful day for a long run this morning as it finally wasn’t too hot (57°F) and we had some cloud cover along the way. 🏃🏻♂️
Not a bad way to get over 30k steps before noon 🤣
Nice slow run this morning watching the sun rise. Earlier than planned however as the dog got me up at 5am 🤦♂️🌅🏃🏻♂️
(32 days to go)
Early morning long run after my soak run on Saturday 😁
Advantages of me running a long run on a Sunday morning… I bring back drinks for the family (pup cup in the center included 🐶) 😁…
Might have underestimated the downpour that was going to happen when I decided to go for a run. Let’s just say even with our puddles like this I won’t be wearing the shoes tomorrow 🤦♂️⛈
At least I had some encouragement from my wife 🤣
Rain threw things off for me early this morning but I found a break in the action to quickly get a run in before more rain. Thankful this branch didn’t finish breaking as I ran by (36 days to go)
Just hit send 📨
Honestly, I am not very good at keeping in touch with people. This could really be anyone, friends, old co-workers, newer acquaintances. For some reason, I always have great intentions of reaching out but just never feel it is the right time to reach out and say I will later.
I was reminded of this the other day while running and I passed an old co-worker and friend of mine walking with his wife. I said hi quick but since I was running with another guy I didn’t stop to talk. After I got done I was reminded that I have been meaning to reach out to this guy for a long time and every time I would think about it I would find about 100x other things to accomplish. Don’t get me wrong it has nothing to do with the other guy because I do this all of the time. It is just one of those tasks that always get buried for me thinking I will find a better time to reach out or I will do it right after work.
I guess you could say it is a good thing I am aware of it 🤷♂️. However, I am going to try to be better and see about setting time aside for starters each week to reconnect with some people whom I haven’t but have been meaning to for a while. We all get busy from time to time and with kids thrown into the mix it gets even worse. However, there is always time to keep connections flowing instead of dead ends.
Seems like all of a sudden the mornings got a lot darker. I might have to dig out the running lights soon. 🏃🏻♂️
Felt good to get a long run in today with no issues. It probably helped that the weather was much cooler out this morning 🏃🏻♂️
Found this friend in the middle of the road on my run this morning… Don’t worry he made it safely across 🐢
New Devices 🍏
I had been an Android user for as long as I can remember and have always enjoyed the phones and software. Maybe I should caveat that last statement with I have had a bunch of iPhones too but at one point I was drawn more to Android and then I really had not looked back and honestly kind of refused to for no real reason. However, after being nagged by my family I broke down in May of this year to get the iPhone mini.
My original goal was to use the iPhone mini as my main phone for texts (iMessages specifically) but continue to keep my Galaxy S-21 as it took amazing photos and videos. I figured I would run with the Galaxy and use it when we went on family trips. However, I quickly remembered I did not like the two phone life after 2 weeks and ended up selling the Galaxy S-21 as it was still pretty new and there was some value I could get out of selling it. I think one of the big things for me that made this switch easy was the size of the iPhone mini, even though my Galaxy was not large the iPhone mini was the perfect size as I didn’t need a huge screen that was not the purpose of the phone for me.
After a month of using the iPhone mini with my Galaxy Tab S7 (with a keyboard of course), I started to get the itch of having the devices sync together better so that got me looking at the iPads. The original reason I got the Galaxy Tab was to use it as a replacement for paper to take handwritten notes at work. I could link up to my companies Office 365 and use OneNote which wasn’t all that bad and I liked having the notes on my tablet and computer synced (my work only had and still has Windows computers). The other reason I got the Galaxy Tab was to be able to have a more personal device when traveling for work and pre-pandemic I traveled quite a bit so it was nice to have a device of my own to do things on that wasn’t my work computer. So fast forward to the end of July it kind of seemed like a no-brainer to get an iPad as it could do what my Android tablet could do and it would sync better with my phone. So I broke down and bought an iPad Pro 11” with Magic Keyboard for iPad and the Apple Pencil 2.
Now if only I could use a Mac for work instead of this clunky Dell Windows machine I would be happier but it is ok. With the iPad Pro 11”, since I got the keyboard, I mostly just carry that around to use when I am not working on work stuff in the house. I will give Apple a lot of credit here on the keyboard as they really did it right with how the keyboard works as it can be propped up by itself without needing to be set on a desk.
I feel like now with my new devices I need to go back and listen to all the Podcasts that I have in the past 4 years that talk about iOS apps as I always listened to them but a lot of the time since there was not an Android version I just forgot about them.
Next up finding new apps 😁..