I noticed that it felt pretty warm today when I went home for lunch. Checked the temp gauge in my truck….80 degrees….sweet! Decided that I should take advantage of that and do my running outside today.
Left HealthQuest at around 4:00 and jogged the half mile down to Napa High School. It was a busy place today. The football team was on the infield as expected, while powder-puff football practiced on the north end in the throwing area. I shared the track with the girls basketball team. They were getting pushed through a tough leg/jumping workout when I arrived, which was followed up by 200 meter intervals. It looked like they were suffering.
I stretched, did some sprint drills, then headed around to the back-stretch to avoid some of the crowd. I decided to run 120 yard sprints along the edge of the straightaway on the artificial turf. It felt good to get up on the toes and open the throttle a bit. I hadn’t run sprints since the Santa Barbara Meet a month ago, so I didn’t go full-out, but stayed in the 70-85% range. After six or seven repeats my calves let me know they’d had enough abuse so I shut it down. I stretched a little more and then jogged back to the gym under the long late-afternoon shadows.
High temps are supposed to drop down into the 60s by Thursday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see 80 degrees again until next spring. I know our Northern California weather doesn’t approach the frigid temperatures the rest of the country experiences, but I’m a wuss. Once that needle drops below 70, the cold weather gear comes out. So today was just a little bonus…shorts and t-shirt…a nice head sweat, a final nod to summer.
Trample the Weak-Hurdle the Dead 