Beachiness

The best thing I have been doing this summer is going to the beach once a week.

I meet up with old and new friends. And Just Stay at the Beach for Hours. And Hours. And Hours.

We go if it's cold, which until this week it has been. This was the first time I got in the water, though.

My career as a foot model is gone!

No, I'm not going to show a picture.

Let's just say that I've now lost five of my 10 toenails within the past six months, thanks to the running kick. Last night, one "big toe" had a nail pop off, and I forced the issue a bit on the other one. It hurts surprisingly little.

Paul's health update: As we suspected when we heard exactly nothing from the docs after the initial scare, all is fine.

Attempting the stair climber

When I got to the swanky gym this evening, in addition to not being able to find a single parking space in the garage (fortunately, there was street parking), I couldn't find a single spot on the treadmills. All were taken.

So, I tried the stair-climbing machine. Those things have always scared me a bit, but, like so many things that scare me, this was actually All Right when I finally figured it out.

I did 15 minutes.

One side effect of running is that my butt has all but disappeared. At least compared to what I'm used to. And I'm not totally happy about it. Some women lose weight in their chests first (and aren't at all happy about that); with me, the butt goes before anything else, and running has seemed to exacerbate the issue.

One way of lessening that effect, I've heard, is to climb stairs. So I might be doing that at the swanky gym for a while.

This was the branch of the gym near the university, and I was enjoying the invisibility that comes from being 20 years older than most of the clientele.