1. Ever heard of Phang Nga Bay? Me neither. You’ve probably seen pictures of Phang Nga Bay because it looks amazing and probably the set to some James Bond movie. The translation to Phang Bay apparently means “heathen, pagan, primitive people” as the area was originally inhibited by aboriginal people.
Photo by Abhishek Revis on Unsplash
2. On Thursday, July 8th, we were in Port Aransas, the wind was blowing maybe 15 miles an hour and the rain was coming down in sheets. With nothing else better to do I decided to run for half an hour. My wife decided to work out in the comfort of an exercise room and I took to the mean streets to run in the rain. I thought about running on the beach, but wet sand and pouring rain didn’t sound like a good combination. 4 miles at 8’17” with an average heart rate of 141 and an average power of 241.
By the time I finished, I was drenched (because of rain)waited a bit, put on some dry clothes, waited some more for the rain to stop and went to the beach a few hours later.
The next day, deciding that running in the pouring rain wasn’t enough, I decided to run on the beach in 20 mile an hour south winds, coming straight up the coast. The overall pace was 9’10” a mile for 5.5 miles, but the mile splits were hilarious. Against the wind, I was running 10’30” miles and with the wind, I clocked two 7 minute miles and one that went 7’15”. That’s how much the wind pushed me along. My average heart rate was 149 and average power was 220. I also managed to gain 571 feet despite running at sea level.
The next day, which was Saturday, I decided to do a relatively long run and ran basically 3 miles south along the beach and ran another mile past my entry point and finished with 7.5 miles with an average pace of 9’18”. Average heart rate was 144 and power was 213. I tried to maintain a 9’00” to 9’15” mile, not too fast, but not too slow. The last mile and a half the wind picked up and my average went from 9’12” to 9’46”.
I don’t write a ton about my running because it’s usually pretty boring, but the point with these three runs was that they were all pretty difficult in their own ways and despite being on vacation, I enjoyed doing these really difficult things. The sprints in the rain and the run against 20 mile an hour winds were especially tough, but the running with the wind, I felt like I was sprinting. An absolute joy in a ton of ways, I wasn’t any more tired, but I did get to run on the beach, something I’ve never done before.
3. I’ve mentioned before that Colossal is a terrific site for art, design, etc., and these drone shots straight above the pyramids are fantastic.
4. I’d never heard of albino redwoods and had also never heard that some people thought that these albino leaves on the redwoods were leaching off of the actual redwoods, but they may suck out harmful minerals to keep the redwoods healthy.
5. If you like nostalgia, this is for you. Gotham Canoe’s Bill Grueskin tells the tell of a 1973 road trip from Colorado to Canada and back.
Seek The Substantial 
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