Sunday, 27 July 2003

I finished the last couple nominees for Hugo awards, made my decisions, and cast my votes. That was fun--I'll have to do it again. I'll also have to do the nominating thing next year.

It was all good stuff, but some of it wasn't what I'd have read if I weren't trying to be a consciences voter. Now that I'm done with that I've got some other stuff to read. I picked up Polyphony, which I expect to be great. I'm planning to write something to submit to Polyphony 4, which opens to submissions in just over a month. I also got a handsome copy of Kipling's With the Night Mail, which I've never read, as a birthday gift from my brother-in-law and his wife.

So, plenty to read. Not to mention that I have lots to write (but did almost no writing this weekend).

I did go for a run. I was planning on going for a five-mile run today.

First we went to the Fitness Center, and Jackie wanted to do a longer-than-usual warm-up walk. I now know that this is a bad idea, if I'm planning on going for a long run. We walked at least two, maybe three miles before going in and lifting.

By the time we got home and I was ready for my run, it was later than I'd planned--almost 11:00. So, that's another thing--running at mid-day on a hot day in July: not a good idea.

I've always known to take water on a long bike ride, but my long runs haven't been nearly so long. An hour (the planned length of this run) is roughly my cut-off point, and since I haven't run longer than an hour, I generally haven't been bringing water. I now know that for a one-hour run in the heat of the day, water is essential.

Anyhow, I did most of the first half just fine, running around one side of Kaufman Lake, along the Greenbelt Bikeway, toward Parkland College, as far as the monument to the olympic athletes. That's about two miles. At that point I decided just to head back. Even that was a bit more than I could do, and I ended up walking parts of the way. I'm going to call it four miles, though.

No problems once I got rehydrated (which took a lot of water).

I'm starting to count the days until my vacation.