Running Wild

While on a business trip in St. Paul MN, I took time for a run at Battle Creek Park this evening.  I was limited to 30 minutes because I was at the park with a co-worker.  This was a very nice park with many trails through a wooded area.  I would definately come to run here any chance I got.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:30:10	8:03 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:29:35	7:54 pace
Distance (mi )	3.74
Moving Speed (mph)	7.6 avg.	12.1 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+459 / -451
Temperature (°F)	69.8°F avg.	69.8°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)	ENE   1.7 avg.	ENE   3.5 max.

Tonight I went to the Point Mallard trail for a nice evening run.  I got home from my business trip at about 3:00 am last night so I've been a little tired today, but this was a nice run.  Many thanks to Eric and his family for watching my dog, Abbie while I was gone.  I listened to an interesting podcast about a program that blind people can use to see using sound.  It utilizes a camera mounted in eyeglasses that a blind person wears.  The program converts the camera images to a series of stereo sound sweeps that repeat with a 1 second frequency sweeping from left to right.  The pitch indicates the height of the object, the timing in the sweep indicates left to right, and the volume indicates the lightness or darkness.  The blind person's brain slowly learns to interpret this audio input as visual information and begins to process the information in the visual cortex, forming images in the brain.  Amazing stuff.  MRIs of the brains of users verifies that the visual cortex is doing the processing.  The other segment was about the history of the polio vaccine in the 50s.  In the US we started a clinical trial for the first Polio vaccine but it was halted and shelved when 6 children contracted Polio as a result of the vaccine.  The problem was traced to a specific company, Cutter Laboratories, a supplier of the vaccine, and to inactivated virus in their product.   The Canadian dept of Health recognized that the problem was something that could be addressed and started their own clinical trials which were successful, and this success was instrumental in the eventual resumption of clincial trials in the US.

Summary Data Total Time (h:m:s) 0:49:08 8:05 pace Moving Time (h:m:s) 0:49:03 8:04 pace Distance (mi ) 6.08 Moving Speed (mph) 7.4 avg. 11.0 max. Elevation Gain (ft) +102 / -103   Temperature (°F) 86.9°F avg. 89.6°F high Wind Speed ( mph) SSW   5.8 avg. SSW   6.9 max.

Tonight I did a run that was somewhat difficult.  It was pretty hot, I wasn't carrying any water, and part of it was through an overgrown poisen ivy choked wooded trail with about a dozen biting deerflies swarming above my head.  I pulled up a bushy weed and was running while swinging it over my head like a madman, which was really pretty effective.  Good clean fun.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:53:50	9:01 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:53:35	8:58 pace
Distance (mi )	5.96
Moving Speed (mph)	6.7 avg.	13.3 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+644 / -611
Temperature (°F)	86°F avg.	89.6°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)	SW   6.1 avg.	SW   6.9 max.

Tonight I did the Trinity City Hall run.  Tonight was the first night of the year that I've carried water.  The distance is just barely at the threshold where it's worth the bother.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:56:21	8:13 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:55:11	8:03 pace
Distance (mi )	6.85
Moving Speed (mph)	7.4 avg.	10.4 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+638 / -635
Temperature (°F)	86°F avg.	86°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)	SSE   6.9 avg.	SSE   6.9 max.

This morning I got up and did a morning run from my house to the Trinity City Hall.  It rained last night and it was pretty humid, but the temperature was quite moderate.  The radar map looked like there were more storms on the way so I squeezed a run in before they got here.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:52:34	7:38 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:52:34	7:38 pace
Distance (mi )	6.88
Moving Speed (mph)	7.9 avg.	10.3 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+623 / -622
Temperature (°F)	72.5°F avg.	73.4°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)	N   0.0 avg.	N   0.0 max.

This morning I did a short run in Trinity.  My back is a bit hurt from barbell goodmornings last night and it slowed my running down today.  Today's run was in full sun and it reminded me of why I tend to run in the evening.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:27:50	8:02 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:27:51	8:02 pace
Distance (mi )	3.46
Moving Speed (mph)	7.5 avg.	10.4 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+364 / -364
Temperature (°F)	79.7°F avg.	82.4°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)	SSE   4.0 avg.	SSE   4.6 max.

Tonight I did the Trinity City Hall run again.  I listened to a Canadian science  podcast that was talking about selection pressures that drive gonadotroph, the male reproductive organ, size in mosquito fish.  Male mosquito fish have large gonadotrophs for the size of their bodies, with lengths ranging from 20% to 70% of their body length.  They are internal fertalizers, hence the need for a gonadotroph.  During courtship they "wave these around wildly" and females are very selective, favoring the males with the largest gonadotrophs.  The question was then, why the large variation in gonadotroph size?  Why don't they all just have large gonadotrophs?   It turns out that a large gonadotroph is a big disadvantage if there are prediators around because the hydrodynamic drag it presents slows the burst swimming speed of the fish too much.  Therefore, predators exert a selective pressure for smaller gonadotrophs, while females exert a selective pressure for large gonadotrophs.  They demonstrated that it was the gonadotroph size that females were selective for, and not other attributes, by doing studies where they showed female fish side by side identical movie displays of a male fish doing his courtship dance, except that on one of the displays the gonadotroph had been digitally enhanced by 15%, (I wouldn't make this up) and they demonstrated that it was gonadotroph size that was the selected for attribute.

Today I had a nice run with Eric Schotz and Jon Elmore.  We started at Eric's house and ran to the Point Mallard trail along the river.  We ran the length of the trail and then back to Eric's.

Tonight was a really nice run on the Point Mallard trail.  I rarely make it over there these days since it's so expensive to drive now, but it's a really nice run, especially just before dusk.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:51:55	8:35 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:47:18	7:49 pace
Distance (mi )	6.04
Moving Speed (mph)	7.7 avg.	11.2 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+100 / -99
Temperature (°F)	78.2°F avg.	82.4°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)	NE   3.1 avg.	NE   4.6 max.

A vendor visited our site today and took us out to dinner.  We got out at about 8:00 and I squeezed in a run at Point Mallard afterwards.  It was dark by the time I got to the halfway point so I returned on the blacktop that goes around the golf course.

Summary Data Total Time (h:m:s) 0:43:50 8:55 pace Moving Time (h:m:s) 0:37:22 7:36 pace Distance (mi ) 4.92 Moving Speed (mph) 7.9 avg. 11.1 max. Elevation Gain (ft) +95 / -95   Temperature (°F) 80°F avg. 82.4°F high Wind Speed ( mph) SSW   6.5 avg. SSW   8.1 max.

This morning I ran a race in the Point Mallard park that Eric Schotz and John Elmore were the race directors for.  They did a staggered start by age and gender and 68 year old Anne Park was the overall winner.  This was a very nicely organized race and the directors did a great job.

Today I hiked with Lori and the dogs at the Twin Lakes park and we swam in the lake for a while afterwards.

Tonight I went running in Lori's neighborhood with Lori on her bike.  We went to Milburn park and ran on the trails there and around the streets in the neighborhood.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	0:24:33	8:26 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:22:46	7:49 pace
Distance (mi )	2.91
Moving Speed (mph)	7.7 avg.	10.6 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+96 / -96