Day 1182 -- Granton

This house in Granton, ON, is from a page of octagonal houses in Canada. You can't see the octagonal shape as well as you can for some of the other houses on the page.

It was noticeably cooler this morning. I popped over to the high school track and did some "speed work". Very slow speed work.

Day 1181 -- Lucan Biddulph

Lucan Biddulph, ON, is another consolidated town. It was formed on January 1, 1999, out of the towns of Lucan and Biddulph. Holy Trinity Anglican Church is in the Lucan part.

I slept in a little this morning, but decided to still go for a run. However, when I walked out the door, there was thunder and lightning in the distance. So, since the gym was open, I decided to go over and do laps on the indoor track. That worked out fine, except for the lack of oxygen. Somebody breathed the last of it a couple of years ago, leaving nothing but humidity. I might have been OK if I had gills. Anyway, I made five miles, and the storm blew over, leaving heat and humidity everywhere.

Sad news

My Uncle Butch, who occasionally commented here as "Uncle Not A.", has died. His son talked to him on Sunday after church, and then after not hearing from him for a day, went over to his apartment Monday afternoon to find him dead. His health had been so bad for so long that this isn't a big surprise, but still we had no intimation that this was going to happen right now.

Uncle Butch was a good man, who valued friends and family more than anything else. He will be missed.

Day 1180 -- Denfield

Looking for a "muscle car"? Look no further. This 1970 Chevy Monte Carlo is available in Denfield, Ontario, for only $22,000 US. Well, wait a minute. The ad was placed a year ago, so the car may be long gone.

I ran five miles this morning. It felt OK. Still hot and muggy. I've given up on it ever being anything else.

Day 1179 -- Ailsa Craig

At first, I thought I'd stumbled on another one of those consolidated towns, where the town of Ailsa had merged with the town of Craig. But it turns out that Ailsa Craig is named after an island in the Firth of Clyde, off the west coast of Scotland. According to this Wikipedia article, the locals call it "AC", or just "Craig".

In honor of Mrs. Jogger, I thought I would visit the Cotton by Post Quilt Shoppe in AC, but alas, they have closed and moved to their London, ON, location.

I didn't run yesterday. I seem to be low on motivation. Partly it's the weather. Heat and humidity makes every run harder. Partly it's coming off the injury. I'm actually feeling fine, but I lost some conditioning while I took it easy. Partly it's disappointment with my performance in Madison. I worked hard for that marathon, and I was confident that I was prepared, but I fizzled out. So it's hard to motivate myself to work even harder.

Having said that, I did turn in a good run today. I ran over 16 miles, and felt stronger than last week. I did take a couple extra walk breaks in the last three miles, but neither of them went on too long, and I finished the distance I had set out to do.

Day 1178 -- Adelaide Metcalfe

Adelaide Metcalfe sounds like two towns, and it is. From their web site, "The Township of Adelaide Metcalfe was formed on January 1, 2001 with the amalgamation of the former Township of Adelaide and the Township of Metcalfe." I suppose that there has been a lot of that around here. I've already been to Plympton-Wyoming and ahead I can see Strathroy-Caradoc. Don't ask me why Adelaide Metcalfe is not hyphenated. (Although the person posting fire-rescue pics on Flikr hyphenated it.)

I was scheduled to run yesterday, but I didn't. I got up, took an internal inventory, and went back to bed for an hour or so. When I did stumble out of bed, it was raining. I was a little disappointed to miss a run in the rain, after all the heat recently.

Fear not, though, because this morning I got my run in the rain. I still didn't feel like running, but having skipped yesterday, I didn't want to skip a second day in a row. So I went out, and within a couple of miles, the rain returned. Alas, shortly after that, the lightning started to get a little too close for comfort, and I knocked off. It was still a good run, though.

Day 1177 -- Watford

Just past Warwick is Watford, home of Moffat and Powell Lumber Store. Well, one home. They have stores in London, Mitchell, Strathroy, Tillsonburg, and Watford. So, what shall we build?

Whatever relief from the heat we had yesterday morning was gone by afternoon, and this morning, it was straight back into the steam cooker. I plodded out about six miles, and called it a day.

Day 1176 -- Warwick

I don't know how you pronounce "Warwick". If it were in the U.S., it would be just like it's spelled. But in England, it's pronounced "Warrick". Is Ontario more American, or more British? I may never know.

Anyway, this is the Warwick Gas and Variety, as posted by Dogbert10 in his Flikr stream.

It was just a tad cooler this morning. I felt pretty good. I kept on running hard through to the end of my six miles, as opposed to the past few runs, where I've really tapered off in the last half. I'm a little sore this afternoon, but I can live with it.

Day 1175 -- Plympton-Wyoming

Plympton-Wyoming, Ontario, just sounds like a snooty place. I guess it's the hyphen. Although the Wyoming part isn't that impressive. "Plympton-Worchester" would be better. In any case, this is the P-W municipal building, in case you want to stop in to argue it with them.

The good news is that I ran twelve miles today -- my longest run since the injury -- and the old abductor didn't give me a twinge at all. I hereby declare myself over it. I do have a physical therapy appointment tomorrow. I think that I'll go ahead and go, on the assumption that they can give me advice about how to keep it from happening again, and what to do if it does.

The bad news is that I came up somewhat short of my daily goal. I had planned to do 15, and I just couldn't make it. Mostly it was the heat, but also partly lack of sleep. Nothing I can do about it, now. Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day, and then Tuesday I'll go out and hit the road again. The heat and humidity has got to break sometime, although there's no sign of it in the forecast.

Day 1174 -- Race Report: GTLOV

Today was the fifth "Get the Lead Out" run here in my little town. Having run the first four, I couldn't miss this one. It was a scorcher, though. I think by the time we were done, it was well over eighty by the time we were done.

The race was OK. There was a new route, because of construction downtown. The nice thing is that the new start line was much closer to home for me. It was an easy walk over, with a little jogging to warm up. The bad news is that the new course had one really nasty hill, with a steep start followed by a long, steady climb. It's a double four kilometer loop, and you hit that hill after about 2.5 K and again at 6.5 K. That second climb, in the heat, was quite a ride.

At 47:07, this was my slowest GTLO, which was OK. I've been slowing down lately anyway, and with the heat, I couldn't expect any world records.

I think the crowd was a little thinner than previous years, I think. I'm not sure whether it was the heat, or the new location, or some combination of both. I was again sixth in my age group. Out of six. I should have entered as "over 50". Only one man was in that age group, so I could have had a silver medal. OK, so it would have been fraud.

On the virtual road, I'm near Brights Grove, ON. This photo of Shopper's Drug Mart is from Doug Chartrand Realty, who holds it out as an example of good shopping if you move to Brights Grove.

Day 1173 -- Oh, Canada!

JogAmericaBlog goes international today, as I run across the bridge from Port Huron, Michigan, to Sarnia, Ontario. 519Biz.com gives three reasons to visit Sarnia: (1) Bayfest, (2) the "Blue Waters", and (3) the Sarnia Sports and Entertainment Centre. Sounds good to me.

I guess that I complained a little too soon, yesterday. This morning, I would have been happy with 70 degrees. It was more like 76 when I went out.

Wait a minute, if I'm in Canada, I should give those temps in metric...

I guess that I complained a little too soon, yesterday. This morning, I would have been happy with 21 degrees. It was more like 24 when I went out.

Actually, both those temperatures sound much better. I think I'm going to like it in Canada.

Anyway, I pounded out 6.5 miles. The last half of it was a real struggle. I took a couple of walk breaks. But I made it, and now I can just sit indoors and enjoy the air conditioning.

Day 1172 -- Marysville (Michigan, that is)

In some sense, I've made very little progress in the last six years. In late June, 2006, I visited Marysville, Ohio. Today, I visit Marysville, Michigan. According to mapquest, the distance between them is only 220 miles. I've run well over 6500 miles. Next time, I'd better stop and ask directions.

I'd say that the Marysville Historical Museum looks like a nice place to kill a little time, while I'm in town. They say, "From the stories of the Native American tribes who inhabited Marysville's shores to those of the early founding fathers and industrial giants, it is a tale of men with vision and courage." Apparently, no women were involved in the history of Marysville. No, I guess that's not right. Just that the ones who were didn't have vision and courage.

It's oppressively hot here today. It was 70 degrees at 5:15 this morning, and humid. Needless to say, I worked up a sweat. I ran five miles in 50 minutes, and I feel like that was my absolute limit. I couldn't have run that distance a step faster, or run that pace a step further. But the good news is, I did complete the run, my first back-to-back runs in more than a week, and my abductor muscle barely twinged at all.

Day 1171 -- St. Clair

I went to the doctor yesterday about my injury. He diagnosed a strained abductor muscle in my left leg. He advised taking fistfuls of ibuprofen. He wants me to take 800 mg three times a day. I'd say I normally don't take 2400 mg of ibuprofen in a year. I'm also going to see a physical therapist on Monday.

I'm actually feeling much better today. I don't know whether it's the ibuprofen, or the rest is finally catching up to me, or just the psychological relief of having seen someone. In any case, I ran a gentle four this morning, and my muscle hardly hurt at all. I want to continue to take it easy until I'm pretty sure that I'm back to 100%.

From the Blue Water Area Convention Center, we have this photo of Palmer Park in St. Clair.

Days 1169 and 1170 -- Pardon the Interruption

Sorry for not posting for a full week. I haven't really been too busy to post, but there hasn't been much news.

I did take three full days off -- Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I iced my injury several times, as well. I ran on Thursday, but it was still pretty sore, which is frustrating. I took two more days off, and then ran again this morning. It was a little better, but still far from 100%. I've got an appointment to see the doctor tomorrow to get advice on how to deal with it. I really need to get this cleared up so I can start getting in the miles. I was scheduled for 18 today, and I ran six.

What else has been going on? I took the kids on a whirlwind tour of the midwest. On Monday, we drove down to Grandma Jogger's house. On Wednesday, we drove out to Omaha to see the Henry Doorly Zoo. We used to go there all the time when we lived out in Nebraska, but haven't been back in five years. They just keep improving it. It was better than ever. The kids had a good time. We drove back to Grandma's house on Friday, and back home on Saturday. I'm tired, and the fact that I didn't get any running in didn't help my patience. But we're home now, and ready for another week.

Above, you can see me running at a tractor pull. The event is the St. Clair County Fair, which is in Goodells, but the tractor is driven by George Moran of Richmond. Richmond is just north of where I am on I-94.

Just south of where I am is Casco. Below you will find Mount Christi Capri, a 2007 filly out of Mount Christie Crown Jewel, by Big Sky Taliesin. She lives with Rochelle and Darrel in Casco. I imagine she's a bit bigger by now.

Day 1168 -- Ouch

I seem to have pulled a muscle in my groin. It bothered me a little on my day off Thursday, and a little more during my short, slow run yesterday. I just chalked it up to the normal aches and pains of an aging marathoner. However, this morning, it was on fire for the whole run, and I had to admit that I'm actually injured. I ran about seven miles, and ran/walked about three more, and called it quits. Now I'm going to take at least three days off, and see if I can come back on Thursday. I don't like taking the extra time off, but there's no point in making a bad situation worse.

So, enjoy these two photos of downtown New Baltimore, because I'm not going to make any progress for a while.

Day 1167 -- Chesterfield

Here's a web site called Roadside Architecture that has a whole heaping lot of signs, diners, motels, and other kitsch from around the country. I'm really surprised that I haven't run into it before, although I may have, way back in the early history of the blog. But it sure doesn't look familiar. Anyway, from their third page of Michigan signs comes this photo of the Chesterfield Motor Inn, which they say is still in business.

I was surprisingly sore yesterday, and even this morning. I took yesterday off, and ran only four very slow miles this morning, and I'm still beat. I hope I've got what it takes for 16 miles tomorrow.

Day 1166 -- Clinton

From Waymarking.com, the Clinton Inn in Clinton, Michigan. Do you know how many Clintons there are? According to Mapquest, there are ten: Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

I ran over to the high school track to attempt a little "speed" work today. Needless to say, I do it early in the morning, so there are no witnesses to how slow my speed work is. It felt fine, but I'm tired. Tormorrow is a scheduled day off, and so I think I'll take the day off.

In family news, today we celebrate the 16th birthday ofr the oldest and newest Little Jogger. We are not actually certain what day she was born on. She was assigned the birthday July 1 by the Ukrainian orphanage system. It's as good a day as any, I suppose.