Looking Back: June

Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.
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Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/june.html

Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January. Hal Borland
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/june.html

"Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January." -  Hal Borland

Running: June was a pretty good running month with a one week setback where I was sick so I laid off the miles during that week. However, I still managed to get three weeks with mileage around 60 miles, bringing my month's total to 235 miles with a total elevation gain of about 45,000 feet. I did no hiking and my cycling miles were puny = 1.7 miles. My Garmin has been on the fritz, so I am not totally tracking all of my data but so far my elevation gain for the year somewhere near 210,000 ft, which is well over my target for this time of the year. My mileage is also over target, but I do expect to have a slower and milder 2nd half of the year, running-wise.

Reading: In June, I read 6 books. None of them were really very good! I gave all of them 2 stars on Goodreads except for the last two, which I gave three. As before, starred books below are for the RHC and bolded ones are "owned" books. Total RHC books read so far = 12/24 ; total owned books read = 3/12.

In the Unlikely Event
Reminiscence of a Stock Operator
Holy the Firm*
The Disappeared
The Beautiful Mystery
After You

Travel: I actually stayed local two weekends this month, as plans fell through one of the weekends and I was sick on the other. However, the other two weekends were spent up in Tahoe: one in the north and one in the south. Both were beautiful, although running up there still involves a lot of snow scrambling, slipping and sliding and route finding, so runs are a lot more work than normal. One of the days we went on a 26 mile run/slog which ended up taking almost 10 hours, although only about 7 and a half of it was "moving" time. The rest of the time was spent route finding, map gawking and head scratching! However, the scenery was stunning, as you can see from the  Lake Aloha photos below.

Lake Aloha

Lake Aloha

My brother and I met up on one of the "local" weekends and did an anniversary Mt. Diablo hike. Three years ago, on almost the same day, we did a 14 mile run/hike and it was probably about 100 degrees that day. It was during the drought and some of the water fountains were turned off. We remember it as being hot and dry and dusty and unpleasant!! So, the other day I got this photo from Google:

2013

So we decided to try it again! We went for a 12 mile hike and once again, El Diablo lived up to its name. It was hot and dry and dusty and we were so thirsty! How's that for two suckers! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Fool me twice, shame on me!

2016

How have you been spending your long summer June days? It's mid-year: how are you doing on your yearly goals so far?