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Easy Pleasy

Heat StrokeOn July 3rd Linda, myself and two of my friends headed up for a Bix practice run.  If you happen to be new to the blog in the last year then you may not know that the Bix7 is my premier run of the race season.  This is the race that started it all so many years ago and definitely the most enjoyable of the lot.  As in the past, I like to get a practice run in just to set expectations.  The two big hills in that race are nothing to be taken lightly – always good to know ahead of time how much of a struggle it is going to be.  For this particular race, there was another reason for self validation…. but will get to that in a bit.  This year Sung made the trek up there with us.  He has been getting himself in shape and has lost an impressive amount of weight from a healthy diet and getting back into running.  This was his second Bix training run and had intentions of going a little further than his previous 4 to 5 mile.  His current 10K training program had put him around 6 miles but that was flat outings.  The plan was to stick with him to help him negotiate however far he felt like going with a side benefit of forcing myself to take it easy.  In the end, Sung made it over both hills and completed the course giving him two PRs in the process – the longest distance yet (7.3 miles – way ahead of his 10K program) and at an average pace of 11:07 which again was his fastest yet.  I find it always helps when someone is talking to you the whole time so chatted him up the entire distance.  On my front, that pace puts me 2 to 3 minutes over my standard pace so that part of the plan came out perfect as well.  Nice and easy, got to enjoy running with a good friend and the fact that I completed it without issue pleased me GREATLY!!

Now find out the cause for caution by hitting the jump to read about a scary experience

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Introducing New Category: WIT

We’re feeling the heat in the Midwest this weekend.  The last couple of days have been cresting 90F pretty easily making it tough for a lot of yardwork.  I did get the mowing done yesterday and then went to the park mid-day to see if I could get a training run completed in the heat – the Bix7 is less than a weak away.   Thanks to the leg rehab and quite frankly a very comfortable season up to this point, the heat acclamation has not been up to par this year and it is showing on the long runs.  A week ago Linda and some friends of mine piled into the car and headed up for a Bix@6 training run.  That was definitely rough and hoping that doesn’t repeat on race day.  Fortunately, I made it through the run, but I admittedly did take a mile off the distance due to the fact the human coolant system went dry capping off my sweat production.  When that happens, it’s best to cut your losses and head back.  I ended up feeling the after effects of that until early this morning.  Long story short(er), I’m just kicking back, taking it easy today and figured it was a great time to introduce a new category called “What Is This” or WIT for short.  Every once in awhile something comes along that is odd or interesting from a creative or mechanical perspective.  To make it interesting for you, I’ll provide a number of pictures or clues in a blog post to help you figure it out.  The answer will then be posted at the end of the NEXT blog entry.  Are you up for the challenge?

The first WIT challenge is this:

First some details that may or may not help you.  This was found in the basement of Linda’s mother’s house while we were clearing it in order to fix some foundation problems she was having.  It was just thrown in a pile of miscellaneous stuff and immediately fascinated me for a couple of reasons.  One it looked complex and intricately designed.  The other cool feature is there was a gear on the other side that rotated the rounded triangles in a unique pattern.  It took a few days to figure out what it was (big thanks to Linda having some recollection in the distant past on what it was).  As a hint, it is not really a toy, nor is it a working part for anything in the house … well, at least nothing in a typical house.  It is also not an American design.  There is one reader of this blog that might already know what it is, but the rest of you might want to check out the detailed assembly pictures that follow after the jump.

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