well, my lifting hasn't been happening. somehow, i tried to restart lifting and volleyball simultaneously with decreasing the amount of sleep i had been getting. not a great plan for avoiding new feelings in your knees to re-introduce that many different movement directions at the same time.
in my running, i have been trying to be really disciplined about starting out super slow and forcing a really slow pace for the first half and then when i turn around to slowly let it rip however it wants (it = my legs, feeling, the entire running experience....). you know: in preparation for forcing myself to go really slow for a very long time so as not to burn up prematurely in the 50-mile attempt. plus, doesn't all the folklore tell us that negative splits are great for training, keep you from getting hurt, and no-one has the discipline/faith to actually do it consistently?
one side-effect from running on the chip-n-seal is that apparently, i am becoming known to all the farmers along my route. the last few weeks they have been (and still are) out a lot harvesting. they always wave to me: vigorously from the giant pick-up trucks, in a friendly manner from the combines, the tractors pulling grain carts, the cabs of the semis pulling the hopper trailers, and even the wives driving the various SUVs despite talking on cell phones [currently illegal in my state
].
recently, a not-super-young guy driving a mini-van pulled over and asked in a very friendly manner: "wow, man. how do you do what you do?" of course, the answer is: take off my shoes and put one foot in front of the other... he was super nice and, you guessed it, eventually let it slip that when he was a kid, way back in the day, he would always run around barefoot. i always find it amusing how people will be amazed at the whole barefoot thing and then remember that they used to do it, too....