Back to WFH, running to Lake Erie, & meteor shower on the way!

Good morning everyone!  Real quick... I have to apologize for not posting as often.  Blogger changed their interface for posting and when you put in more than one photo then it REALLY bogs down the browser trying to rearrange the order of the photos.  I literally spent more than an hour the past couple days trying to get it to work.  For anyone else with this issue I found if you copy and paste the photo it is a little easier than dragging.  Anyway!  I am back to working from home since the COVID numbers have gone up.  There were a couple of possible cases and work made the decision to have as many of us work from home that can do so.  I am happy to be back at home and not have to sanitize my work area.  But I do miss my coworkers. 

I have been spending a lot of time with the kids doing new things.  Summer has been trying to catch a fish, but no luck yet.  It has been so hot that we lose interest quickly.  Hoping for some cooler weather before she returns to school. Evan also gets fussy so trying to help Summer and entertain Evan at the same time is a challenge. 

I’ve always wanted to attempt something while visiting my wife’s parents: Run from their house to Lake Erie. It’s a long way and I’ve never been fully trained to do it, but thanks to quarantine I’ve been approaching my goals with a “JUST DO IT!” mentality and go for it. So I was supposed to do a 50k last weekend, but it was cancelled 40 hours before the start. So, JUST DO IT!

Started early and was treated with a great sunrise. It was about 17 miles to the lake if I did surface roads. If I wanted to do metroparks then it would be about 25 miles to the lake. I wanted to be completely self-propelled with an out and back so I stuck to the shortest route.

I did see some wildlife on the way and was treated to some non-sidewalk miles with the multi-use path for about 4 miles.

Just over 17 miles to the lake! I stopped for about 10 minutes to enjoy the view. We visit her parents so regularly but don’t get to the lake often. 

Something about a big body of water cleanses my stress. The only thing you can focus on is the water and the sky. Maybe a boat or two.

Quick shot of Cleveland from the Lakewood park.

My only other “stops” were for water at my wife’s aunt’s house a half block off the course. Didn’t stop the watch the entire run with the exception being that 10 minutes at the lake. Glad I took a couple ziplock bags because it rained a lot of the run back home.

35 miles later… I made it back to my in-law’s house. I kept the pace “comfortable” without pushing too hard in order to keep my heartrate at a reasonable level. Fun challenge and something I’ve always wanted to do.  This is the longest pavement run I have ever done.  I wore the Altra Torin Plush.  I want to try out the Paradigm next.  I was fueled almost entirely with Tailwind, berry flavor.  I did take a couple oatmeal cream pies to snack on as a treat.  Glad I got the Adventure Pack from Ultimate Direction because it allowed me to carry so much with only two water stops on the 35 miles. Oh... and no blisters thanks to my Xoskin socks.  They are pricey for socks, but SO worth the money. The hat was also nice to have when it started raining. BOCO hats are my favorite because they seem to have larger sizes than most running hats.

We drove back that evening because we had a baptism the next morning.  I was asked to be a godfather! Very odd to go to church with everyone wearing a mask.  But I did feel like it was a very safe environment with all the precautions and everyone spaced out.

I spent this weekend on the trails with my good friend, Mike.  We went to Great Seal State Park and ran 20 miles. Love being on the trails.  Way easier on the body than on the pavement. 

Good Tuesday morning! We have mostly cloudy skies this morning and we will see the clouds slowly break up some for partly cloudy skies this afternoon. There is a 30% chance of some isolated showers or storms popping up this afternoon with high temps in the upper 80s and high humidity.

Tonight the Perseid meteor shower is peaking. The best time to look is 11PM to 12:30AM when it is the darkest and before the moon rises. You will want to look to the northeast, but the meteors are possible all across the sky with 10-15 possible an hour and very dark locations could see up to 60 an hour with the fainter shooting stars more visible. Tonight is expected to be partly cloudy so check sky conditions before heading outside. Overnight low temps bottom out around 70.

A weak cold front will park to our south for the next couple days so there is only about a 20% chance of rain for us, on the north side of the front. The best chance of rain will be Southern Ohio for the spotty rain. Our humidity and temps will only slightly drop. 

That front slowly lifts north for Friday and the weekend with a 40% chance for rain for the end of the the week and weekend. Temps will be in the upper 80s and humidity will be high. A better chance for rain comes Monday with a stronger cold front. Most models are keeping us fairly dry until Monday, actually. We will be hot and humid, but we do not have a great triggering mechanism to get the rain to start popping. I am inclined to drop the chance of rain lower for the days, but let's let it play out with a less than 50% chance of rain through the weekend and adjust based on how the rain plays out. If we start getting some rain to pop today and the next couple days then the outflow from the previous day's storms may trigger more for the following day. So a low chance of rain, with high temps and humidity. Have a good one!

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael