Stream of consciousness

I had a pretty good run yesterday.  11 miles at a moderate pace was on the schedule.  I don't even know what moderate pace is anymore.  Once upon a time, I could run and figure out my pace and distance pretty closely based on feel.  Now, I'm a slave to my Garmin, and I have no clue.  I chose to run a pretty typical (for me) route in and around Madigan.  As I was running down a trail, I realized that it was nearly springtime, and that the bears would be coming out of hibernation right about... now.  Last summer, when I was running down the same trail, the hairs on the back of my neck started standing straight up; within about 200 yards, I saw a fairly young black bear.  He looked at me... (he looked at me)... I looked at him... (I looked at him)... he sized up me... anyway, he scampered across the trail in front of me.  As I ran past the spot where I saw him cross the trail, I looked off to my right.  There he was, appearing to try to hide behind a pretty small tree.  It was pretty comical; I guess he figured that if he couldn't see me, I couldn't see him.  The only problem I had was that I was guessing his mama was somewhere in the area as well.  I didn't see any bears yesterday, which was a good thing, because I am not very fleet of foot at this time.  All of the longer distance stuff is killing my foot speed, which was already slowing down at an alarming rate. 

The sun was shining (kind of) when I started my run, and I thought, "What a welcome relief from my recent rainy runs."  Predictably, as I was finishing up the last few miles, the squall line, which I did not notice in the west, rolled in and it started raining on me (AGAIN!)  A few years ago, when I was training for an Ironman, it rained for 28 days in a row.  The record for the Seattle area was 32 days.  By the time we got to the  mid-20's, I figured that we might as well get the record.  Of course, it stopped a few days short.  All I remember was that just about every day that I went out to run that winter, it rained.  Kind of like this year.

Because it was St. Patrick's Day, I even wore a green shirt while I was running.  And I did have a Guinness last night to celebrate.  And yes, it tasted good.  By the way, I can write about more than running and beer; it's just that, for many runners, one begets the other, and I do enjoy moderate amounts of both.  But my face definitely turns redder after a beer than after running.