Cardiologist Visit, ExercIsing, Baseball, TV, Beach, Depot Parkrun, Typing

 This morning I visited my regular cardiologist at northern Gainesville's UF Health Medical plaza in Spring Hill. He endorsed prescriptions to help lower my recent high blood pressure...and the exercises continue! I also did a good amount of rock-running, mainly while watching baseball games on TV. Also, I slow-ran for 40 seconds across the back yard.  It's now early in he evening following sunset, and I'm ready for more television.  As for tomorrow, we'r e still considering a brief stay at the beach..Depot Parkrun is now "off the table." My typing accuracy has worsened a lot, so, I'll leave it for you to read the best that you can,errors and all. So for the time being, good night, everyone..sleep well...

Back from Daytona Beach, Training to re-enter Long Distance Running Picture

 Today Melissa and I finished up our overnight stay at the Hampton Inn in northern Daytona Beach...then she drove the both of us back home.  Right now it's 5:55 PM. Today is the start of a new week, with its five weekdays.  It reminds me of my old, grueling high school routine, going back to the spring of 1971 when I was stuck (and not doing very well) in the ninth grade at Davie's Nova High School. The air outside back then was beginning to stink of smoke caused by a local drought and wildfires spreading across the South Florida Everglades.  Today, though it all seemed clean out on the beach.  I exercised, running in place for 36 minutes.  It's late in the afternoon now, and I've exercised for ten minutes so far.  Tuesday afternoon I am scheduled to be at UF Healh's Davis Cancer Pavilion to undergo some more IV chemotherapy for brain cancer.  Right now our living room tv is showing an old, melodramatic medical series, on which the actors are portraying characters full of troublesome life and relational issues..there's plenty of stuff on it that feels wrong to me1.i am continuing to listening, on my own public library's lLibby app, an audiobook from Martinus Evans titled Slow AF Run Club, in which the author humorously and frankly lays out his own experiences about returning to SLOW long distance running and presents several practical suggestions how I (or anyone interested in running) can get going with it.  I have a long history of running, both with training and participating in public races.  I have entered and completed two 26.2-mile marathons, along with 19 13.1 half-marathons.  With the lengthier distance, I have little interest in adding to my "accomplishments".  I simply want to return to my  old ability for lasting reasonably long distances dating back to the year 2010,  Consistently sticking with daily training can build up compounded positive effect over the next few weeks and months.  I'm still counting on progress in my  ongoing struggle against cancer. May this spring and summer bode well for you and yours...

Going to Beach with Melissa Today

 This morning would be the birthday of my late father and son.  Daddy would be turning 100 while Will would be 36.  Melissa and I are planning to stay overnight at a Daytona Beach Hampton Inn and then return home Monday.  After Saturday's double-lap walk through Depot Park, I got up early, around 4:30, and did ten minutes of running in place on the living room rug floor before brewing some coffee and writing this. Earlier yesterday evening I listened some more to a library audiobook about running and the first chapter of an annoying Hardy Boys adventure story...it reminded me of an old South Park episode titled "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" when the gay lads keep "getting a clue" You know,  Joe and Hardy each sound like their privileged brothers, the only missing words being their "clues"that no one ever holds them accountable for . Later this morning, Melissa and I have a reservatioto at a Daytona Beach hotel, where we hope to enjoy the ambience of our room balcony and the poolside.  It sure would be nice to recover some walking and running fitness on that sandy beach, too.  The beach looks like the perfect location to practice running softly.  

Enjoyed Some Time at Daytona Beach

 

Melissa and I made a somewhat spontaneous decision to go to Daytona Beach for a couple of nights...we just got back this afternoon.  It was pleasant to see the ol' Beach again...nice to be able sit out on our oceanfront room balcony and take in the scenery.  Since we're talking Wednesday check-in and Friday check-out, this stood as the last full weekday stretch for a while in which kids weren't going off to school.  Hence there were a lot of families with children everywhere...and especially in the hotel's swimming pool.  We did avail ourselves of it Thursday...I think our local pool is a lot more convenient, though.  I went on a couple of walks along the beach, each in a different direction.  The weather was a mix of rainstorms and sun.  The tides seemed to come in a bit too strongly, impeding walking paths along the beach...I timed my walks to coincide with receding sea levels.  We also ate out at a couple of our favorite area restaurants.  The whole experience was fun...except for the sometimes exasperating drives from Gainesville to there, and back.  And it's good to be back...

Enjoyed Our Brief Stay at Daytona Beach

Yesterday Melissa and I took an overnight trip to Daytona Beach at our favorite hotel and got back into town (Gainesville) earlier this afternoon.  Nothing planned out of the ordinary: sitting on the oceanfront balcony, walking up and down the beach, swimming in their fine little pool, eating both our dinner and breakfast on site...and of course our room was very comfortable as always.  Sometimes I wish I had a little closet I could enter and step back out of, into a completely different location...this beach would be high on my priority list of such places.  Being there was great and being here at home is great...it's the tedious driving back and forth among the often distracted or overaggressive fellow motorists that I could do without...

Another Jigsaw Puzzle...and Melissa Takes Her Sister to the Beach

 

Recently Melissa bought me a new jigsaw puzzle, a humorous 1000-piece painting of Yellowstone National Park with its Old Faithful geyser...I just completed it about an hour ago.  Meanwhile, she has taken her sister Krista for an overnight stay at Ormond Beach...that's them out on the balcony.  I'm glad Krista got this chance to get out on an excursion with Melissa...she has endured quite an ordeal with medical issues in the past two months and we are all praying for her recovery and a happy, healthy life.  So here I am at home, being babysat by my dog Daisy.  I hope that things are going well for you as well...

Our Weekend Beach Visit

Melissa and I enjoyed our outing to Daytona Beach this weekend...we just got back into Gainesville.  There didn't seem to be very many people out there, and that suited us just fine.  The beach was fine for walking, and the swimming pool at our hotel was usually empty and we used it during our brief stay.  I'd like to say it's nice to be back, but frankly I'd rather be extending my stay over there...

Swimming: My Past, Present and Future

Although I grew up in south Florida just a few miles from the beach and visited it numerous times with my family, I didn't learn how to swim until I was twelve years old, and that was only because my high school, in 1968, just had its own swimming pool built.  Before, in the ocean, I would just get out in the waves in water nearly over my head and float on my inner tube...the fact that I couldn't swim didn't seem to bother anybody!  Yet if I got in a swimming pool, I'd be afraid of the water, go figure!  Even after learning to swim, though, I got no practice in my swimming style...I was taught the rudiments of the American freestyle crawl stroke that one time and that was it.  In physical education class in high school, I was always by far the slowest in swimming...that was pretty humiliating.  It was only when my kids were growing up and taking their own swimming lessons that I became more serious about improving my swimming skills...but still I lagged behind.  I did, at the advanced age of 40, finally learn to float on my back, yet I still haven't figured out treading water.  Back in 2011, seeing a friend doing laps at my nearby YMCA pool using the breaststroke, I decided that year to try to develop it on my own.  I seemed to be making some slow progress, but a serious medical diagnosis later that year sidelined this project, and I didn't resume it...until now, some twelve years later.  What I'd like to do is develop most of the basic swimming skills, including at least the crawl, breaststroke, backstroke, and treading water, to the point where I can go for a sustained period performing pool laps.  I've set aside Friday evenings to get pool time at my local gym, and I do have several instructive YouTube videos to draw upon for guidance. It should be a fun adventure of sorts.  What to do with it all?  Just swim more on my own, I guess. Although swimming is regarded as a generally kinder sport on the body than running, it is more limited regarding public racing events in comparison to the latter because of the constraints of providing suitable water venues.  I've been kind of dismayed by this, since this has made the sport a bit more elitist than is running/walking, which has gained a lot of popularity among folks-at-large and allows more participation at slower levels of ability...

Enjoying Beach Outing This Weekend

This weekend Melissa and I have been at the beach, Ormond to be specific.  It's been fun and a good change of scenery and pace.  We're returning home tomorrow...hope all is well with you!  I really enjoyed getting out in a decent pool and getting to swim a bit...maybe I'll finally get around to trying laps at my local gym's indoor pool after getting off from work at night.  In any event, it's a blessing to thoroughly enjoy outings like this while, at the same time, looking forward to getting back...

New Running Strategy is a Return to My Old Running Strategy

As the temperatures grudgingly begin to fall while the fall season progresses, I am considering my running and walking strategy for the weeks and months ahead.  I've decided to go back to a method touted by running guru and marathoner Jeff Galloway that alternates running with walking, and which I used to great success in my training for years.  My plan now is to simply, whatever the distance, run at an appropriately brisk pace for five minutes, followed by a fast one-minute walk, and then going back to the steady run for five more...and then back to walking, alternating between the two for however long my distance is for that day.  This will be for training as well as for races, although when I'm just jogging around inside the house, I don't see the need for it.  Melissa and I will be going to the beach this weekend...I definitely will be doing the run/walk plan then on any runs from our hotel to the Daytona Beach Pier and back.  I distinctly remember back in 2010 feeling that with this way of training, if I wanted, I could run indefinitely for whatever distance I chose without stopping...

Enjoyed Our Brief Visit to Daytona Beach

 

Melissa and I just got back from a two-night trip to Daytona Beach, staying at our favorite hotel there.  Sometimes it's good to break the regular pattern and routine and get out of town, if only for a little while.  For the most part we rested and enjoyed the ambiance...although I did go out on a 4.5-mile beach run yesterday afternoon during low tide.  The temperatures during the day stayed in the seventies...unusual for this time of year...but the winds coming from the southeast were ferocious, as I discovered during my run when I turned around to go back to our hotel.  As is the case in my workplace, they're doing some renovation work at this hotel...some things I guess you just can't get away from...

Tropical Storm Nicole Passing by Gainesville Today with Wind and Rain

Nicole, hopefully the final tropical storm to affect us in northern Florida, is currently passing through the central part of the state's peninsula on its way to the Gulf of Mexico where, at some point, it is predicted to make a turn toward the north and Georgia and the western Carolinas.  In the meantime, Gainesville is being subjected all day and night today to strong winds and tropical storm force gusts along with continual, strong and slanted rain.  I've been tuned in to The Weather Channel, which has been emphasizing Florida beaches...especially those sections like Vero Beach where the minimal hurricane, now a tropical storm, came ashore and places like Daytona Beach Shores which suffered much damage during Hurricane Ian a few weeks ago.  Still, other than the rain and annoying wind, Nicole should pass through our area without too much trouble...although I'm crossing my fingers about the power staying on in our area.  It developed a few days ago east of the Bahama and began drifting westward through Florida, sending Weather Channel meteorologists up and down the eastern Florida coast.  Melissa and I have stayed a number of times at Daytona Beach Shores and seeing the combination previous damage from Ian with the new storm's surge made a big impression on us.  Locally, Santa Fe College and the University of Florida are closed today and, of course, tomorrow is Veteran's Day.  Nicole is not a very strong storm as hurricanes go, certainly nowhere near in impact as Ian, but it does encompass a very large area and will take a while to pass on through...  

Beach Instead of Football Planned Today

As Melissa and I head out of town to Daytona Beach on this stormy weekend, many other folks are pouring into Gainesville to partake of the festivities of the University of Florida Fightin' Gators football team as they try to beat Kentucky this evening.  Everyone's excited because they won their first game last Saturday...if only by the skin of their teeth.  But confidence morphing into cockiness abounds...sooner or later they're gonna lose and that will be tough for some to withstand.  I've been to three UF home games since 1977...all of them due to others inviting me or handing over their tickets due to other commitments.  The only time I "enjoyed" the experience was the time during Muschamp's last year as coach when it was homecoming and Missouri humiliated Florida...that was all right with me: I was sitting with Melissa in the front row in the end zone cushioned chairs instead of those bleachers.  With bleachers, you come to an early conclusion that you have a simple choice: either stay seated and only see the backs of the people standing up in front of you or stand up yourself and block the people behind you...no thanks!  No, we'll be out on the oceanfront, most probably ignoring the Gators and other sporting events.  Hope the truckers aren't out there...they really screwed up our Labor Day weekend visit there a couple of years ago...

Wishing All an Enjoyable Late July Weekend

I hope you have a good weekend, whether or not you're working and wherever you happen to be living.  Here in Gainesville, Melissa and I enjoy the convenience of having a reasonably short drive to "our" beach, which is a short stretch on the Atlantic coast connecting Ormond Beach to northern Daytona Beach.  Having relatives staying with us to watch our rapidly growing puppy Daisy while we're gone, we're making an overnight venture out there to relax and enjoy the surf, pool and other surroundings. Hopefully, Daytona won't have a theme going on like "Truckers" or "Bikers" week. Nothing wrong with that, per se, or those participating in those events...but I like things a little bit more in the "peace and quiet" zone...  

Rough Ocean Reminds Me of Upcoming Hurricane Season

Yesterday at Daytona Beach Melissa noted to me that the ocean seemed "angry", with lots of choppiness and medium-to-large waves...the color tended to be greyish-green, kind of stormy looking in spite of the clear skies.  It was very windy as well...must be something brewing offshore.  I was watching The Weather Channel this morning and Stephanie Abrams was discussing a big Atlantic coastal storm, centered off the North Carolina coast and causing problems on their shoreline. The whole storm thing reminded me that we're coming up on the start of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, officially beginning on June 1st.  Normally talking about tropical storms this early would seem a bit premature, but in recent years we've seen quite a few named storms in the first couple of months of hurricane season...and even earlier.  In any event, here are the names for 2022...at least through the letter "W": Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Ian, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Martin, Nicole, Owen, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tobias, Virginie, Walter.  In case some of these names seem familiar to you, they're all recycled from 2016...except for M and O (Matthew and Otto were bad enough six years ago to retire).  The general forecasts are for a slightly more active than usual season, so I imagine I'll be tuning in to TWC even more often than usual.  Of course, my favorite scene is of one of their meteorologists "roughing it up" on a threatened beach while pedestrians are casually walking by in the background...I'm sure I'll be watching a few of those this summer/fall...

Quote of the Week...from Psyche Roxas-Menoza

Every time I stand before a beautiful beach, its waves seem to whisper to me: If you choose the simple things and find joy in nature's simple treasures, life and living need not be so hard.

                                                     ---Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

Psyche Roxas-Mendoza is a writer and editor from the Philippines...I admit to no knowledge of her other than this fantastic quote of hers, which I intend to use as a segue to this article about Melissa and my vacation beach trip to Daytona Beach for the previous four days. We arrived there late Sunday afternoon, staying again at our favorite hotel until yesterday.  We were originally booked for a room with a smaller balcony and a side view of both the ocean and city, but when our door's lock malfunctioned they moved us without the usual extra charge to an oceanfront room. This was fortuitous as we both enjoyed a lot of time on that balcony and could view from it the second "Super Moon" in as many months as it rose from the southeastern horizon in the constellation Scorpius.  We also did a lot of walking up and down the beach, during both high and low tides when its character and size drastically change.  On Wednesday afternoon we were walking southward back to our hotel when Melissa noticed a strange trail in the sky: it was from the SpaceX rocket launch just a few minutes earlier.  Over our stay we deliberately kept it all simple, mainly enjoying the beach and our hotel's fine pool area while going out to local restaurants like Aunt Catfish, Charlie Horse and Don Pepper's.  After checking out Thursday the two of us paid a visit down memory lane at Ormond Beach's Pirates Cove miniature golf course where we would play years ago while our children were growing up.  But more than anything we enjoyed each other's company and the simplicity and beauty of the beach, with all its different kinds of birds, interesting cloud formations and fellow human visitors...the last of which, gratefully, there weren't that many... 

Our Weekend Trip to Daytona

For Melissa and me this year's Labor Day weekend coincided with our wedding anniversary...going on 34 fantastic years now.  We decided to book a room in Daytona Beach at the Hampton Inn we liked...only our preferred hotel was already full and we just barely got a room at the one further south in Daytona Beach Shores.  But that's a good hotel, too, and Saturday afternoon we drove into Ormond Beach on State Road 40, looking forward to getting settled in at our place down the road.  While going down Granada Boulevard I noticed many motorcyclists riding as a group, all donning special shirts identifying them as veterans...cool...but then I wondered whether we might have stumbled into this area in the middle of a special bike week celebration.  But when we all got to A1A the bikers turned left and we went right toward our hotel destination.  The traffic seemed a little heavier than expected, but hey, it was Labor Day weekend after all and we knew it would be busy.  But a little later we found ourselves stuck in a massive traffic jam...loaded to the hilt with pickup trucks, the kind their owners like to raise up high over their wheels for some peculiar reason known only to themselves.  Everywhere.  It was then that we discovered that a trucking rally, postponed from a few months earlier due to the coronavirus, was now taking place...oh joy.  We did eventually make it to our hotel, and from our 8th floor balcony we could look down on the beach and a long procession of raised pickup trucks passing by, first in one direction and then in the other.  I get it, this is an "identity" kind of thing where you see yourself in terms of your interest and congregate...just driving back and forth like that, though, seemed silly.  Apparently, the focus of the rally was the Daytona Speedway...glad we didn't go anywhere near there...

You've maybe seen the same scenes on TV that I have of people on different beaches violating distancing rules, but generally here on Daytona Beach Shores they seemed to be doing a reasonable job...with the pointed exception of the truckers and their mostly young adult passengers, many times crammed together in the pickup trucks' backs and nobody ever wearing a mask.  In our own hotel most patrons and all of the staff complied with mask rules...but then again there were a few guests who didn't.  But we didn't let the lack of common civility among some of the people around us wreck our enjoyment of the weekend and we had a great time...love the beach...

Miscellaneous Ramblings about the Weather, Comet and Beach

The last couple of Saturdays have seen the weather acting up in Gainesville after a week of generally clear skies...we're expecting some rain and storm later on while at this writing in the morning the sky is clouding up and it seems kind of muggy outside.  So I'm going to put off my "long run" in the neighborhood until tomorrow with hopes of improved weather...

This past Thursday morning I got up at 4:30 to see Comet Swan, which was located just east of Pisces and next to Aries, reportedly just barely visible to the naked eye at 5.5 magnitude...I had a pair of binoculars to aid me.  Unfortunately it was too low in the eastern sky for me to see, although the last quarter moon, along with two nearby planets, provided a visual spectacle.  So, I went back inside and, seeing that sunrise would be at 6:36, set my alarm for 6 thinking that the comet would then be high enough in the sky for observation.  But alas, when I went out then the sun hadn't yet risen but the sky had lightened enough anyway to blot out all the stars and planets, with the only the moon left visible.  I've seen comets before, the most spectacular one being Comet West, which streaked very brightly across the predawn sky early in 1976 while being virtually ignored by the press and people at large.  Usually, though, they've been very faint and sometimes I needed binoculars to see them.  Oh well, Swan is too close to the sun now...better luck with the next comet...

A couple of Saturdays ago Melissa and I drove over to St. Augustine Beach in the morning...specifically Vilano Beach...to walk up and down it and return home.  It wasn't overly crowded and I thought most everyone there was conscientious about distancing because of the coronavirus.  But at our stop in the nearby Publix, although the workers all wore masks as well as the two of us, most customers did not and did not practice distancing.  I know the false narrative and am tired of it: "it's my own body"...but in truth, what they are doing is messing with everyone else's bodies since anyone can be infected even without symptoms...

So maybe I'll go out and run tomorrow...looks like there's a tropical system offshore that might become Arthur, our first named storm of the year.  But it's veering away from us in Florida and headed toward the Carolinas...

---Later in the same afternoon: it never did rain up here in northern Gainesville, but the humidity has remained high...I'll see if maybe I can't get out to run some tomorrow...

 

Some Rainy-Day-Off Musings

Another brief entry on this blog...just happy to be at home, off from work for a couple of days and free of wearing a mask.   It's been raining off and on all day, putting off my long weekly run until tomorrow or possibly next Saturday if the rain keeps on falling.  I am watching various news/opinion channels...the whole gamut from MSNBC to CNN to FoxNews to NewsMax.  Unlike probably 99% of my readers, I look for and usually find value in each of these channels' programming, recognizing up front the political posturing and bias inherent in each of them and looking beyond to attain truth...I've been watching NewsMax but will soon switch over to CNN or MSNBC.  I see everything happening in the USA about the coronavirus pandemics being filtered through three different areas: public health, the economy and politics.  I don't automatically tag one political party and its leaders as the "good guys" while personally vilifying those heading the opposite side the way some of my Facebook buddies sadly find themselves doing...instead I discern the bias I'm hearing, look at the issue through those three filters and by doing so arriving at a broader and better informed position.  Politically I am issue-based and sometimes side with  the Republican "take" on one and the Democratic view on another.  I guess with these protests against stay-at-home/shutdown policies springing up across the country... it was inevitable, especially in an election year...that partisan politics would begin to sharply insert itself into the COVID-19 news.  I did notice that when Jacksonville reopened its city beaches today they were flooded with people who didn't seem all that concerned with social distancing...funny, I didn't think that Duval County had been "flattening" its curve the way my home county of Alachua has begun to do...

Well, I guess that's it for today, stay safe...

My 13.3 Mile "Defiance" Run Today

For the past few weeks I've gotten back into the habit of going out on long runs on Saturday afternoons.  Last week I ran 10 miles while today...with wonderful weather conditions of almost clear skies, near-calm, around 75 degrees and 40% humidity...I covered 13.3 miles using my convoluted designed course going up and down the streets of my neighborhood and the adjacent one, along with the more sloped stretch of asphalt pathway on NW 53rd Avenue between 34th and 43 Streets.  I have long used walking breaks within my training runs...they help to conserve energy and alleviate problems associated with repetitive motion: the slower times reflect this as the time for today's run was 2:51:25...then again, I have a tendency to be a bit competitive around other runners and in a race setting I probably would have pushed myself harder.  During the whole run I listen to a shuffle on my MP3 player of some of my favorite musical acts, including R.E.M., Regina Specktor, Beck, Metric, Gorillaz, Spoon, Sufjan Stevens, Kasabian and Radiohead, to mention a few. With the stay-at-home emphasis going on in these times, I encountered on my journey many people out in their yards, jogging, walking with family or by themselves, walking dogs, riding bicycles and a couple of skateboarders...I crossed streets to ensure distancing although that 3-mile stretch up and down 53rd Avenue presented a challenge with its narrow path.  Everyone seemed friendly and we would wave or say "hi" as we passed each other...

I was a little miffed that due to this pandemic the half-marathon race (13.1 miles) I had intended to run in Ormond Beach on March 21st (along with enjoying a beach weekend with Melissa) understandably was canceled, so today's "half-marathon-plus" run was a happily defiant way for me to thumb my nose up at the disease...we'll see about getting to the beach later on when it all settles down...