More Rain

More or less the same weather as yesterday. Wet and dreary. I slept in this morning and just ran 8 miles on the hamster wheel. I got to the six mile mark about a minute faster than I ran six yesterday (and felt better doing so) and finished the eight in 60:58. I was huffing and puffing a bit more at the end, but was very disciplined about NOT upping the pace past 7:30, although its really tempting on a long run like that. Knee pain was minimal. I guess the even surface and give of the treadmill is good for recovering from IT band. Need to keep that in mind.

I had Chris Knight's "A Pretty Nice Guy" on the iPod. Great CD. I just got it and one of the things about running the treadmill is that it really gives you time to listen to music. Most of the time I listen to music these days its on in the background and my mind is on other things. Running on the tm requires very little concentration, so its one of the few times that I can lose myself in music. Knight plays a style of hard country (for lack of a better classification) and lots of songs about desperate characters in situations that force them to go beyond their everyday selves. In his ability to create such characters he is right up there with Springsteen, but in a rural context. My favorite Knight song is still "The Jealous Kind" (off the cd of the same name) but song for song this CD is better. Not ideal running music in that its a bit hard to get a rhythm off some of the songs, but today I just played the music to listen. Some day I'll figure out how to upload audio on this blog and post some of the music I listen to.

Lots of persons at the ARC (USP's athletic center, www.usip.edu/arc/) this afternoon, mostly walking but also on the machines. It must be the new year. I hope they keep it up. Shit, I hope I keep it up.

Going to New Brunswick tonight and all day tomorrow for a meeting, so I guess I'll be running on the treadmill again tomorrow, probably do six. Don't know if I'll get to post.