Trails for Two

Hey all,
It’s been a busy few weeks here, as we got Alec ready to start fall term remotely. We got him a desk and better chair, which allowed us to retrieve a dining chair and move his old antique desk into a nook in our living room, which let me get our computer off the dining room table for the first time since spring. Woot!

We’ve also been waiting to see what happens with Alita’s job, since our disease activity rate means K-12 education is still remote, too. There’s a chance they may bring in special ed students, which means she’d finally get to work again. But there’s also a chance she’ll get furloughed. We’re waiting to see.

One nice thing: We got out today for a hike and even a little easy running on the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park. It’s an area I used a lot when I was training for my 50 miler, but Alita and Alec had never seen it. It’s a nice stretch with mild to moderate elevation gain. They liked it a lot.





Understandably.

Looks like you picked a gorgeous day for your walk/run!  I'm sure it was nice to get outside and enjoy your old familiar stomping grounds.

Hope Alec settles in to on-line school well.  And that Alita is allowed to return to working with her kids.  I'm sure they need her as much or more than she needs them!  Natalie was panicking over the thought of trying to home school her tribe.  They ended up putting together a group of 8 kids...I think 4 families...and hiring someone to oversee their on-line education for a few hours each morning and I think they will even have a PE activity or special activity in the afternoon occasionally. At a cost of $50 per week per child it won't be cheap but I think it's a good option.  With the Warm Springs numbers in our mix it's going to be a long time before the Madras kids are allowed to return to school!

I haven't signed up for the trail half yet but I've been trying to get in at least one off road run per week.  It's going well.  I had a fun little adventure on Tuesday.  I went to Bend to have my car serviced...after my morning speedwork...and decided I didn't want to sit and play on my phone for 1 1/2 hours.  I realized I could jog to the Deschutes river (1 1/2 miles) and back so I wore my running clothes.  Shortly after I left the dealership I saw a sign for the Central Oregon Irrigation District Historic Canal Trail so I detoured from the suggested route via roads on my phone.  It was an awesome run/jog.  I got lost, found some single track trail along the river, and ended up with 6 miles on a very warm afternoon.  I was exhausted but enjoyed it immensely.  I don't think I'll be prepared to race on trails by October 3rd but I think I'll be able to safely navigate to the finish.

Take care.  Hope you are able to get out on the trails a bit more as summer winds down and turns into Fall.

Hopefully all of you out there in the Portland area are safe.  All I see is the twisted media and it's enough to give me an all day headache - every single day.  I'm sure as a member of the media it is crazy for you.

Shannon is back to teaching from her classroom here but the kids are remote.  Special Needs kids will go back to F2F 2x per week starting on Tuesday and some lower grade elementary students will go back for 90 min - per week - not sure how that will work.  High school is still expected to be aways off, but who knows at this point.  WE do know that here in Georgia we are #1 for all the wrong reasons.  

Stay safe!

nkrichards wrote:Looks like you picked a gorgeous day for your walk/run!  I'm sure it was nice to get outside and enjoy your old familiar stomping grounds.

Hope Alec settles in to on-line school well.  And that Alita is allowed to return to working with her kids.  I'm sure they need her as much or more than she needs them!  Natalie was panicking over the thought of trying to home school her tribe.  They ended up putting together a group of 8 kids...I think 4 families...and hiring someone to oversee their on-line education for a few hours each morning and I think they will even have a PE activity or special activity in the afternoon occasionally. At a cost of $50 per week per child it won't be cheap but I think it's a good option.  With the Warm Springs numbers in our mix it's going to be a long time before the Madras kids are allowed to return to school!

I haven't signed up for the trail half yet but I've been trying to get in at least one off road run per week.  It's going well.  I had a fun little adventure on Tuesday.  I went to Bend to have my car serviced...after my morning speedwork...and decided I didn't want to sit and play on my phone for 1 1/2 hours.  I realized I could jog to the Deschutes river (1 1/2 miles) and back so I wore my running clothes.  Shortly after I left the dealership I saw a sign for the Central Oregon Irrigation District Historic Canal Trail so I detoured from the suggested route via roads on my phone.  It was an awesome run/jog.  I got lost, found some single track trail along the river, and ended up with 6 miles on a very warm afternoon.  I was exhausted but enjoyed it immensely.  I don't think I'll be prepared to race on trails by October 3rd but I think I'll be able to safely navigate to the finish.

Take care.  Hope you are able to get out on the trails a bit more as summer winds down and turns into Fall.

Way to take advantage of the opportunity. Getting lost and finding something amazing is an important benefit of trail running. 

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Hopefully all of you out there in the Portland area are safe.  All I see is the twisted media and it's enough to give me an all day headache - every single day.  I'm sure as a member of the media it is crazy for you.

Shannon is back to teaching from her classroom here but the kids are remote.  Special Needs kids will go back to F2F 2x per week starting on Tuesday and some lower grade elementary students will go back for 90 min - per week - not sure how that will work.  High school is still expected to be aways off, but who knows at this point.  WE do know that here in Georgia we are #1 for all the wrong reasons.  

Stay safe!

Hi! I'm happy to say that reports of Portland's demise in a flaming hellstorm of chaos are premature.

The vast (and I mean VAST - the protest areas are probably a couple of square blocks in a large city) majority of Portland is going on its day to day life as usual, except with face masks. The areas of protest have boards over windows that have been painted with colorful murals that really ought to be saved for a future art installation. The federal building has its share of graffiti on it, but nothing a power washer won't remove. 

Seriously. You wouldn't want to be in the protest area when there are tear gas canisters and pepper balls being fired, unless you're there to make a point, but otherwise? Meh. We happened to be downtown about a half hour after what was apparently a series of skirmishes between opposing groups (which the PPB was oddly not breaking up) and it was like an ordinary Saturday downtown, except with fewer pedestrians. There were a few sketchy folks walking around, but it's a city - what do you expect? 

Now, that fatality over the weekend was unfortunate but unfortunately not unexpected. Too many people have been itching for a fight for too long, so it was only a matter of time before someone did something even stupider than usual.

Anyway, thanks for your concern. We're doing fine. Vancouver is the St. Paul to Portland's Minneapolis.

One quick note: I've been running!

Well, a little.

We did a little jogging in our hike last weekend, which Alec loved, so when I started walking Alita to school (she has to report to the building, even though there are no students there), I've been doing a little running on the way back home. I'm keeping an eye on my HR and walking when it gets up a bit too high. It feels nice to move, and this sort of gradual reintroduction should help the process.

I have no ideas for actual distance ran or anything like that. I'm using my Apple watch and Strava, which isn't as precise as a Garmin for that sort of thing. But I think its good enough for now. Onward!

You're not old enough to run, yet.
 

I'm glad you're finally out there and racking up thousands and thousands of inches in your exercise quest.  Is this running path barefoot-friendly?

I wear two watches, when I run.  The Garmin for cadence in steps only and accompanying graph.  The Polar for the other stats.  The Garmin is not as accurate regarding distance, as the Polar.

How's Alec and his eating habits, now?  I bet the college-oriented businesses in Cougville are hurting something fierce.

Keep at it.

ounce wrote:You're not old enough to run, yet.
 

I'm glad you're finally out there and racking up thousands and thousands of inches in your exercise quest.  Is this running path barefoot-friendly?

I wear two watches, when I run.  The Garmin for cadence in steps only and accompanying graph.  The Polar for the other stats.  The Garmin is not as accurate regarding distance, as the Polar.

How's Alec and his eating habits, now?  I bet the college-oriented businesses in Cougville are hurting something fierce.

Keep at it.

I know, right? I'd say I feel like a rank amateur after my hiatus, but my body is starting to remember how it's supposed to feel.

I could probably do the route barefoot, but I'll probably stick with shoes at the moment. 

This morning, I decided to see how far I could go without stopping, slowing down instead of walking if my HR crept up too high, and I ended up running about a mile. It wasn't bad. I'm very time limited for this, so I don't know if I'll be able to extend it much. And being that I'm walking with Alita to school before I start running, I tend to wear non-running attire. At least now I can wear shorts, since it's still summer.

I'm not worried about data at this point. I just want to stimulate the system a bit.

Alec is doing a pretty good job eating, though he still needs to work on not going too crazy eating too many healthy snacks. 

I've heard that more than 10,000 students went back to Pullman, which is proving problematic. They went from 90 positive cases on Aug. 1 to 618 yesterday. (Edit to add: They're up to 656 today!) They're racking up about 50 new cases every day. Yipes. So having Alec home was probably the right choice.

Like Alita, Shannon is back in the classroom but with no kids.

Those walks will build back that fitness faster than you realize as the body never really forgets.  When I hurt my calf in March (right when the world crashed around us), I didn't run for 3 wks, but I did walk almost everyday and built that distance up to 5K pretty quickly.  When I did start running again, I kept it to every other day and no more than 4-5 miles for the rest of the month, and I was really surprised how fast I gained fitness.

And while Alec might not be the happiest he has ever been at home, he won't regret it.  They are not even reporting cases on college campuses in GA anymore, but you can look at the counties and see that they are in the bright red!  Students at one local college, GCSU, actually protested saying that the school gave them no choice but to return, but was not working to keep them safe.  That school has the lowest numbers as of right now - not a big school, but measuring per 100K.

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Like Alita, Shannon is back in the classroom but with no kids.

Those walks will build back that fitness faster than you realize as the body never really forgets.  When I hurt my calf in March (right when the world crashed around us), I didn't run for 3 wks, but I did walk almost everyday and built that distance up to 5K pretty quickly.  When I did start running again, I kept it to every other day and no more than 4-5 miles for the rest of the month, and I was really surprised how fast I gained fitness.

And while Alec might not be the happiest he has ever been at home, he won't regret it.  They are not even reporting cases on college campuses in GA anymore, but you can look at the counties and see that they are in the bright red!  Students at one local college, GCSU, actually protested saying that the school gave them no choice but to return, but was not working to keep them safe.  That school has the lowest numbers as of right now - not a big school, but measuring per 100K.

Pullman is on a hotlist of fastest-growing caseloads in the country at the moment, which makes us all pretty relieved that he's here. A number of students were locked into 12-month leases and decided to go back since the money was going to be spent anyway, and besides, they would be in an apartment, not a dorm... well, that off-campus housing seems to be the focal point of the current outbreak. Oops.

I'm experimenting with different approaches on my little jaunt home. Today, I did a run-walk, allowing my HR to get up a little higher than ideal fo a low HR effort and then walking until it fell well below the level. I ended it by flooring it, though, jacking my HR up to 171 and getting more than a little wheezy.

Mark B wrote:

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Like Alita, Shannon is back in the classroom but with no kids.

Those walks will build back that fitness faster than you realize as the body never really forgets.  When I hurt my calf in March (right when the world crashed around us), I didn't run for 3 wks, but I did walk almost everyday and built that distance up to 5K pretty quickly.  When I did start running again, I kept it to every other day and no more than 4-5 miles for the rest of the month, and I was really surprised how fast I gained fitness.

And while Alec might not be the happiest he has ever been at home, he won't regret it.  They are not even reporting cases on college campuses in GA anymore, but you can look at the counties and see that they are in the bright red!  Students at one local college, GCSU, actually protested saying that the school gave them no choice but to return, but was not working to keep them safe.  That school has the lowest numbers as of right now - not a big school, but measuring per 100K.

Pullman is on a hotlist of fastest-growing caseloads in the country at the moment, which makes us all pretty relieved that he's here. A number of students were locked into 12-month leases and decided to go back since the money was going to be spent anyway, and besides, they would be in an apartment, not a dorm... well, that off-campus housing seems to be the focal point of the current outbreak. Oops.

I'm experimenting with different approaches on my little jaunt home. Today, I did a run-walk, allowing my HR to get up a little higher than ideal fo a low HR effort and then walking until it fell well below the level. I ended it by flooring it, though, jacking my HR up to 171 and getting more than a little wheezy.

Sounds like home is the best place that Alec could be at this point in time.  

Looks like Fast Freddie is happy to run with anyone that's willing.   I don't think a bit of quick running hurts and I'm sure it felt good to feel the wind through your hair.   

I know I've been a skeptic of your slow running theory and I may not completely adhere to it even now but I am pleasantly surprised at the success I've had this summer by adding in more slower stuff.  Take care and enjoy your jaunts.

I'm okay with Mark housing Fast Freddie for a while.  He and Fluff may make a good team!

ounce wrote:I'm okay with Mark housing Fast Freddie for a while.  He and Fluff may make a good team!

That's a scary thought.

Two other thoughts: When I did one of those DNA tests, it says I'm wired more for sprints than long distance genetically. (Figures...) Part of me wonders if I ought to, just for the heck of it, experiment with speed at shorter distances? Now, I've always hurt myself when I've tried to go fast before, but I've tried to do it for longer distances. Hm. 

The other thought: When I goosed it the other day, my HR spiked up to 171... which is, of course, 5 bpm higher than my "official" Max HR based on the 220-age formula. And I wasn't even at max effort. Now, I'm out of shape, but still.

Mark B wrote:

ounce wrote:I'm okay with Mark housing Fast Freddie for a while.  He and Fluff may make a good team!

That's a scary thought.

Two other thoughts: When I did one of those DNA tests, it says I'm wired more for sprints than long distance genetically. (Figures...) Part of me wonders if I ought to, just for the heck of it, experiment with speed at shorter distances? Now, I've always hurt myself when I've tried to go fast before, but I've tried to do it for longer distances. Hm. 

The other thought: When I goosed it the other day, my HR spiked up to 171... which is, of course, 5 bpm higher than my "official" Max HR based on the 220-age formula. And I wasn't even at max effort. Now, I'm out of shape, but still.

Did your DNA test take into account that speedy foot for sprinting versus the non-speedy foot for distance?

I can answer that 171 max HR question. 171 is your new max! The formula is a target for everyone.
In 2009, I ran a 10K race. I maxed my HR at 202, so for ease, my new max was 200 and used that until my heart attack.

This past January was the Half race. The cardiologist wanted my max to be around 150. Oops! The last half mile, I was at 178. I rounded to 180 as my revised new max.

Heck, I bet you're closer to 200 as a max.

It worked great right up to your heart attack, eh? 

Hm... not the most reassuring guideline, Doug.

My previous 5K racing max was 193, I think. So yeah. This 171 was far from a maximal effort. I was just starting to breathe hard. It was also on my Apple Watch, not a Garmin HR strap, so it may be an Apples to oranges sort of thing, too.

No the DNA test doesn't take into account my deformed feet. Biomechanics down there are my Achilles heel when it comes to efficiently transferring power to propulsion. Or cuboid-calcaneal joint. Or something. I'm sure some kineseologist would say I'd do better mechanically on a bike, where the foot is just what connects the legs to the pedals, but we digress.

Interesting HR conversation.  My understanding was that your Max HR was a number used to calculate appropriate training HR zones but was not necessarily a number you should try to achieve at any point in training or racing.  And like everything else associated with running the info they publish is pretty generic.  Everyone is different.  

It is fun to see what you can do now and then...and I don't believe it's harmful as long as it's not to long or to often.  Dr. B seemed more concerned with long efforts than short hard efforts.  Go ahead have some fun.

But I do have an important question.  Those pesky ads that show up on the bottom of my screen have been driving me crazy the last couple days.  I seem to remember you mentioning to someone how to get rid of them.  HELP!

Sorry, I'm not sure about the ads. If you're logged into the site, there should be fewer than if you just view it without signing in.

Our activity level has gone to virtually zero these past several days thanks to hazardous levels of wildfire smoke. I'm not even exaggerating for dramatic effect, either. For most of yesterday, our fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) was above 500... which is rated as "beyond the scale" that rates anything from 300-500 (ppm, I think) as "hazardous." 

This morning, we're down to a mere 436 score. Yay? They had hoped relief would come last night and today but now they're saying maybe Thursday, maybe the weekend. Until then, our place is shut up as tight as a drum, and our a/c units are recirculating air. Both Alita and I are working from home. I was outside for maybe 10 minutes yesterday (double masked, even though you really need an N95 for this junk) and smelled like a campfire for the rest of the day.

What happened? Well, gentle reader, is happened like this. The West Coast is on fire, thanks in large part to a completely bizarre weather pattern (snow in Denver, record high temperatures in Los Angeles) last week that put super dry (think sub 10% humidity), super strong east winds through areas that don't usually see conditions like that. It didn't take much for forests on the west side of the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada to blow up in very large wildfires. We've had a lot of deaths and a staggeringly large area burned.

We're safe where we live, though there's fire to the northeast of us and lots of fire to the south in Oregon. But all that wind blew all that smoke out to sea, and once the weather patterns reversed from offshore winds to onshore winds, guess what looped back and plowed back into us? Yup. All that smoke from California and Oregon. It's going to eventually push its way through (I read that parts of the smoke plume are now reaching the East Coast.), but we've got a lot of atomized forest to breathe until that happens. Oh, and the fires are still burning. 

So like I said, we're hunkered down, hoping the air clears sooner rather than later. We can't even exercise indoors, according to health experts. Who knows what our interior air quality is. I know it's way better than outside, but it can't be good.

Pray for rain, please. We need it.

We need rain here too - but we will certainly get it from one of those 5 (yes 5!) hurricanes in the Gulf.   I will try to send some of the rain out to the west coast - but no promises - sorry.   I was thinking this morning as I was indeed running in RAIN that I would give just about anything to run in 60F weather with 50% humidity.  Can't I just get cool, crisp air one day in September?

Anyway, hoping that things improve soon.  Keeping all of you out there in my thoughts and prayers.

Mark B wrote:Sorry, I'm not sure about the ads. If you're logged into the site, there should be fewer than if you just view it without signing in.

Our activity level has gone to virtually zero these past several days thanks to hazardous levels of wildfire smoke. I'm not even exaggerating for dramatic effect, either. For most of yesterday, our fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) was above 500... which is rated as "beyond the scale" that rates anything from 300-500 (ppm, I think) as "hazardous." 

This morning, we're down to a mere 436 score. Yay? They had hoped relief would come last night and today but now they're saying maybe Thursday, maybe the weekend. Until then, our place is shut up as tight as a drum, and our a/c units are recirculating air. Both Alita and I are working from home. I was outside for maybe 10 minutes yesterday (double masked, even though you really need an N95 for this junk) and smelled like a campfire for the rest of the day.

What happened? Well, gentle reader, is happened like this. The West Coast is on fire, thanks in large part to a completely bizarre weather pattern (snow in Denver, record high temperatures in Los Angeles) last week that put super dry (think sub 10% humidity), super strong east winds through areas that don't usually see conditions like that. It didn't take much for forests on the west side of the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada to blow up in very large wildfires. We've had a lot of deaths and a staggeringly large area burned.

We're safe where we live, though there's fire to the northeast of us and lots of fire to the south in Oregon. But all that wind blew all that smoke out to sea, and once the weather patterns reversed from offshore winds to onshore winds, guess what looped back and plowed back into us? Yup. All that smoke from California and Oregon. It's going to eventually push its way through (I read that parts of the smoke plume are now reaching the East Coast.), but we've got a lot of atomized forest to breathe until that happens. Oh, and the fires are still burning. 

So like I said, we're hunkered down, hoping the air clears sooner rather than later. We can't even exercise indoors, according to health experts. Who knows what our interior air quality is. I know it's way better than outside, but it can't be good.

Pray for rain, please. We need it.

We woke to AQI of 634 on Saturday.  We're currently at 374 and like you are waiting anxiously for it to clear.  They keep moving back the date...  Saturday we (Marty and I) had to work for a few hours in an open tractor.  We wore masks but I don't think it helped much.  We put my brother, the hired man, and Kevin in the tractors with cabs.  The smoke is affecting the weather and really making harvest difficult.

I haven't exercised since Thursday until this morning.  We got up early and did our lower body lift and core.  Didn't breath hard so I think we were OK...we needed to move our bodies!

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:We need rain here too - but we will certainly get it from one of those 5 (yes 5!) hurricanes in the Gulf.   I will try to send some of the rain out to the west coast - but no promises - sorry.   I was thinking this morning as I was indeed running in RAIN that I would give just about anything to run in 60F weather with 50% humidity.  Can't I just get cool, crisp air one day in September?

Anyway, hoping that things improve soon.  Keeping all of you out there in my thoughts and prayers.

Yes...fingers crossed for a cool, crisp day!!

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:We need rain here too - but we will certainly get it from one of those 5 (yes 5!) hurricanes in the Gulf.   I will try to send some of the rain out to the west coast - but no promises - sorry.   I was thinking this morning as I was indeed running in RAIN that I would give just about anything to run in 60F weather with 50% humidity.  Can't I just get cool, crisp air one day in September?

Anyway, hoping that things improve soon.  Keeping all of you out there in my thoughts and prayers.

Five storms is just nuts. If they wanted to divert one toward us, though, I think we'd welcome it... as long as it provided rain.

Cool and crip... do we get that anymore? Maybe in October.

nkrichards wrote:

Mark B wrote:Sorry, I'm not sure about the ads. If you're logged into the site, there should be fewer than if you just view it without signing in.

Our activity level has gone to virtually zero these past several days thanks to hazardous levels of wildfire smoke. I'm not even exaggerating for dramatic effect, either. For most of yesterday, our fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) was above 500... which is rated as "beyond the scale" that rates anything from 300-500 (ppm, I think) as "hazardous." 

This morning, we're down to a mere 436 score. Yay? They had hoped relief would come last night and today but now they're saying maybe Thursday, maybe the weekend. Until then, our place is shut up as tight as a drum, and our a/c units are recirculating air. Both Alita and I are working from home. I was outside for maybe 10 minutes yesterday (double masked, even though you really need an N95 for this junk) and smelled like a campfire for the rest of the day.

What happened? Well, gentle reader, is happened like this. The West Coast is on fire, thanks in large part to a completely bizarre weather pattern (snow in Denver, record high temperatures in Los Angeles) last week that put super dry (think sub 10% humidity), super strong east winds through areas that don't usually see conditions like that. It didn't take much for forests on the west side of the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada to blow up in very large wildfires. We've had a lot of deaths and a staggeringly large area burned.

We're safe where we live, though there's fire to the northeast of us and lots of fire to the south in Oregon. But all that wind blew all that smoke out to sea, and once the weather patterns reversed from offshore winds to onshore winds, guess what looped back and plowed back into us? Yup. All that smoke from California and Oregon. It's going to eventually push its way through (I read that parts of the smoke plume are now reaching the East Coast.), but we've got a lot of atomized forest to breathe until that happens. Oh, and the fires are still burning. 

So like I said, we're hunkered down, hoping the air clears sooner rather than later. We can't even exercise indoors, according to health experts. Who knows what our interior air quality is. I know it's way better than outside, but it can't be good.

Pray for rain, please. We need it.

We woke to AQI of 634 on Saturday.  We're currently at 374 and like you are waiting anxiously for it to clear.  They keep moving back the date...  Saturday we (Marty and I) had to work for a few hours in an open tractor.  We wore masks but I don't think it helped much.  We put my brother, the hired man, and Kevin in the tractors with cabs.  The smoke is affecting the weather and really making harvest difficult.

I haven't exercised since Thursday until this morning.  We got up early and did our lower body lift and core.  Didn't breath hard so I think we were OK...we needed to move our bodies!

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:We need rain here too - but we will certainly get it from one of those 5 (yes 5!) hurricanes in the Gulf.   I will try to send some of the rain out to the west coast - but no promises - sorry.   I was thinking this morning as I was indeed running in RAIN that I would give just about anything to run in 60F weather with 50% humidity.  Can't I just get cool, crisp air one day in September?

Anyway, hoping that things improve soon.  Keeping all of you out there in my thoughts and prayers.

Yes...fingers crossed for a cool, crisp day!!

We hit 635 at some point in the past few days. We're currently at 376. Better, but still hazardous.

One extra complication is that we've developed an air inversion, too. So it's a dead calm soup of nastiness around us. I have seen some sun trying to burn through, but it's not up to the task. There is hope that a system hitting our area Thursday night and Friday might help scour it out... but nobody is making any promises.

We're all working from home right now because the HVAC system where we work are not made to handle these conditions. It's safer to seal yourself up at home and not go out.

Working on the farm right now would be so difficult. They've canceled garbage pickups to reduce their employees' exposure, which I don't think anybody could take issue with. I also worry about unhoused populations. It's bad enough to live outside, but to be out in that 24/7? Terrible.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:We need rain here too - but we will certainly get it from one of those 5 (yes 5!) hurricanes in the Gulf.   I will try to send some of the rain out to the west coast - but no promises - sorry.   I was thinking this morning as I was indeed running in RAIN that I would give just about anything to run in 60F weather with 50% humidity.  Can't I just get cool, crisp air one day in September?

Anyway, hoping that things improve soon.  Keeping all of you out there in my thoughts and prayers.

Sally is your only chance for rain out of the 5. Two of the 4 will be sheared apart. The other 2 are just too old.

ounce wrote:

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:We need rain here too - but we will certainly get it from one of those 5 (yes 5!) hurricanes in the Gulf.   I will try to send some of the rain out to the west coast - but no promises - sorry.   I was thinking this morning as I was indeed running in RAIN that I would give just about anything to run in 60F weather with 50% humidity.  Can't I just get cool, crisp air one day in September?

Anyway, hoping that things improve soon.  Keeping all of you out there in my thoughts and prayers.

Sally is your only chance for rain out of the 5.  Two of the 4 will be sheared apart.  The other 2 are just too old.

Looks like Sally is quite the rainmaker, though.

We briefly improved to "very unhealthy" in the past 24 hours but are firmly back in "hazardous" again. I keep wiping down the plastic mesh filters on our a/c units (they're the through-the-wall variety) and what I'm getting off of them is pretty disgusting. And these filters aren't made to catch something as fine as PM 2.5 pollution. I shudder to think how much crap we've got in our lungs right now.

A meteorologist, Brooks Garner, that used to be in Houston and now in Denver posted the following on his Twitter acct.

DENVER - We're catching second hand smoke from Cali and Oregon today. The particulate matter is equivalent to the dangerous/dated habit of smoking, with the logic that, "1 cig per day is the rough equivalent of a PM2.5 level of 22 μg/m3". #cowx #FOX31