August 17

AM: 7-mile progression run, 11 miles total

PM: 7 miles easy/slow

I met Liam at mile zero of the American Tobacco Trail. After a short mile-plus warmup, we jumped on the trail and headed out to the 5-mile mark. Aside from navigating a few light street crossings, the run actually went rather smoothly. Even though it's a rail-trail, the ATT is deceptively rolling with some long uphill stretches on the way out. Despite this, we cut the pace down pretty evenly, pulling the plug with 3 miles left for a cooldown to keep the effort "comfortably hard": 6:15, 6:00, 5:52, 5:42, 5:34, 5:32, 5:26.

Today was also obscenely humid. I biked 3.5 miles to orientation, and was absolutely drenched with sweat by the time I got there. I fortunately had the foresight to bring an extra shirt; I would have had to buy a shirt at the bookstore otherwise.

After a long day of testing, getting to know some of my classmates, and meetings, I went for a shorter run through the neighborhoods with a loop around Al Buehler. About a mile from home, I noticed a squishing in my shoes, as a summer thunderstorm had just passed over the area. Except that there was no storm: I was just sweating profusely, again, which had now soaked through my socks and into my shoes to the point where I swear I was leaving wet footprints on the asphalt.

It's sort of fitting that I've come to North Carolina to experience new levels of heat and humidity at this point in my life. As some of you know, I'm something of an "expert" on humidity, and it sort of coincides with my levels of education (a little ridiculous...but follow me on this...the last week or so has proven too much time for me to think during runs and otherwise).

Westminster in Atlanta was my secondary education in humidity, really just an introduction. Maryland was my college education, but both the work and humidity were really no tougher than Atlanta or Westminster, with a few exceptions. Now, I'm in North Carolina: the "grad school" of humidity. It's humidity more advanced and complex than any humidity I've experienced before, but in the long run I feel it's will be good experience to get through it.

In other news, I need to get out more.