"Mr. Ski Gloves" and other mysteries…solved!

I posted about a person I see just about every day, walking in the hottest of weather wearing Michelin Man ski gloves*: At random points in his perambulations, he drops to the pavement and does pushups. I guess the gloves are to protect his hands. Still seems like overkill, though.

The forecast for tomorrow’s half marathon in Connecticut is for 70 degrees and around 80% humidity. I suppose it could be worse (and it has been in past years, or so I’ve read). Fortunately, much of the course is reported to be shaded, so I’ll just focus on getting the water down my throat rather than the front of my shirt and taking it easy on the hills.

I will be one of 274 women in the 40-49 age group running (perhaps more, if there are race day registrations) tomorrow. I recognize one name from the NYRR races — someone who always beats me by just a minute or two. I want to try to reverse that trend tomorrow (although by her recent race times, it looks like she’s impervious to heat).

We’re promised a post-race “beach party,” which I hope means ice cream and beer (don’t ask me why I make that association). Way before noon! Sometimes, when you get over the whole taxes, home repairs, needing to hold down a job thing, being an adult is a lot of fun. Anyway, I’m hoping this “party” will make up for the fact that I need to get up at 4:30AM tomorrow morning to drive an hour and engage in strenuous exercise in high humidity.

Before I go, I want to praise Tivo. Because of Tivo we’ve been able to watch every single match in the Euro 2008 Football cup, at our leisure, in the evening. And we have about 30 “track and field” broadcasts scheduled to record in the coming weeks, Olympic trials from Eugene and otherwise. Heaven. Sheer heaven.

Also, since I’ve been making very little progress with weight (or, rather, butt) loss lately, despite running 90 miles a week and dropping my caloric intake to around 1500 a day, I decided to give the whole “your body will go into starvation mode and hold onto fat like it’s going out of style” theory some credence. For the past week or so, I’ve been experimenting with eating more (and more frequently). And rapidly losing fat. Who knew?

*Originally reported as “mittens.” I see now that they are in fact gloves.