I used to have a secret Facebook group that I would post my workout(s) to keep me accountable to me - and to others - to do something, but I learned over time that not all secret Facebook groups are necessarily all that good.
One of the reasons why they're secret is - ah - there might be some things you might not want to get out -- or to have seen. Well, invariably they do.
A large part of the reason why I basically shut mine down - not that I had anything to hide, but rather so I could force myself to get back to blogging again. And be public about it, no matter how boring.
Even though I do like to tell a story or two.
What I didn't know is that I was one of the reasons (Katy Lampson being the other) why Huntsville's Ken Johnson has been blogging about the same number of days that he's run since 2008.
And when I saw him last night at the Millican Summer Series 5K Race No. 2, he's been wondering why I haven't been blogging lately - and that he's been checking every day.
Well, Ken, here's my note of walking 6.14 miles along The Woodlands Waterway in about an hour and 30 minutes.
Why don't I know for sure?
I hadn't wiped my time from last night's race off my watch on my wrist so I was going to rely on the Strava app, which I've been using when I don't do some of my standard routes.
The only problem is that I didn't get it started right after I stopped and chatted with Susan Rouse near the Riva Row Boathouse about 1.2 miles into tonight's effort.
So I'm taking credit for the 6.14 miles that I did on Wednesday night - also in the heat - and just marked it down at an hour and 30 minutes (Wednesday's was 1:28, even though I thought I might have been clipping things off a little faster this evening).
Over the years, when I started blogging even before what Ken saw to get started, I would always report on who I saw while I was out there.
After I crossed the foot bridge near going into East Shore to come back towards Interstate 45, I hear somebody hollering from one of the trolley buses. Immediately, I thought to myself, "Who can that be?"
Jimmy Baker. I knew he drove school buses for one of the districts after he retired, but I had never seen him on one of the Trolley buses -- and I'm out on The Waterway a lot.
He asked what I was doing and I replied, "Taking care of myself." In more ways than one, physically and mentally, and sometimes spiritually too.
So where do I stand in the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee?
May (31) GVRAT miles = 170.081
June (18) GVRAT miles = 88.84
Total GVRAT miles - 258.921
Ahead of pace at 49 days = 249.42 based on 621 miles (6.2 miles = 10K; 1000K)
Right on pace at 49 days = 258.21 based on 642.9 miles
The breakdown?
Run: 24 entries (last on Thursday June 17, 2021) — 83.98 miles — 0ft (0.0m) — Time: 15:05:33
Walk: 42 entries (last on Friday June 18, 2021) — 174.941 miles — 0ft (0.0m) — Time: 43:54:45
If you had told me at any time in my life that I'd have this kind of mileage without running five marathons in a month, which I've done before, I'd say you were half crazy, even though this is really only about 35 miles per week.
After finishing 54 marathons, a 50K and a 50-miler, and making a couple of attempts at a 100-miler, honestly, I don't care. I'm happy just doing what it is that I do.
If you're heading out to Katy tomorrow for the No Label Brewing First Street 5K, this year will be the first that I won't be announcing it.
And, actually, it's OK, because basically I don't know that I wanted to.
However, I was a little bummed that I didn't hear from the race director at all, especially after doing races for them for so many years.
Like a lot of other things in life, a lack of communicating - at all - or in a timely fashion creates a lot feelings that really don't ever have a place to have even been created.
