Well, socks, if you want to be technical about it. These are shots before my pleasant run in mid-thirty degree weather:

These feel great when it gets below 40. The cold road feels refreshing, while the rest of the foot feels nice and warm. After about a mile and a half, they were too warm for me so I took them off. Don’t want to wear out a perfectly good sock.

Before setting out with my holy socks, Iris said, “you’re a real weirdo, you know that?” I replied, “You’re no Plain Jane yourself there, toots.”

It was a good run. No pain in the left glute at all. This time the right glute complained a bit, though. I think it’s just my body getting itself back together after what I did to it. I’ll continue with the easy runs until things feel close enough to perfect, then I’ll put some speediness back in to get ready for the next 5k on Nov 12.

Speaking of the next 5k, I have a probably foolish gameplan: I’m going to try to hang with Trey (second series points leader (edit – woops!), leaves positive comments on the blog, all-round nice guy) and recent BFJ Interview victim Richard (3rd in series points, has developed so quickly into a fast runner that it confirms my observations of an unfair universe of disorderly chaos) from the start. Most likely I’ll burn out and finish around 19 minutes, but maybe… well, we’ll see. I’ve got a couple more opportunities before the Long Rest to reset my 5k PR, but they’re on hilly courses. Who knows if I really even have anything left in the tank. So might as well go for broke, right?

The last race of the year for me will be…

The Mistletoe Half. That’s right, I’m totally pushing my luck by stepping back in the ring against the course that ate my toe. I hope the weather is good for barefooting, so the revenge will not lack sweetness. Maybe possibly definitely a PR.

And then the Long Rest, during which you my dear friends will receive free, yes, FREE! samples of my Barefoot Couching Services. Is it ok to sleep for three consecutive days straight? What’s the proper candy-to-spinach ratio? Should one feel guilty for becoming a slothful hedonist? The answers to these questions (which are, by the way, yes, 15:1, no) and more await you for the low low price of, well, that’s to be determined. Something reasonable, I suspect.