Season 2, Mission S12: Search And Rescue

2.01 miles – 37:04 minutes – 18:27 min/mile

Whew. I managed to get out the door a little after 9 am, but it was already pretty hot. Still had a pretty good run/walk. I decided to try running every third lap... until I got a zombie chase at 23 minutes, just after I got down the hill on a running lap. Still, it was only finishing the lap I was already going to run and a little more (but at a faster pace), and I evaded after they got within 50 meters. After that, I decided to try running half a lap, then finishing at a walk, and doing another full lap walking. So it was a .5 lap running to 1.5 lap walking interval, instead of 1 : 2. That worked a little better, I think, especially in the heat. It's supposed to cool down a little after today, but soon enough summer will come along and I'll have to start getting up early to do my runs before the sun comes up. At least I feel fine now, didn't get totally dragged down by being out in the sun. Yay for my meds!

It's warm enough now that I've started wearing my short-sleeved shirts and leggings to run in. Which means, no pockets. I was just slipping my phone into my jacket pocket or the pocket on my long running pants, and I seem to have forgotten everything I've ever known about exercise gear, because Monday and today I just tucked my phone into my waistband, but today, since I was running, my phone started to slip down into my leggings, and I started thinking, I need something to attach my phone to... maybe get one of those armband phone holders... but no, I can't wear those because of my arm... hm, maybe I should have a belt with a loop I can tuck my phone into... And then suddenly my brain switched on and I remembered, oh yeah, waist packs with phone pockets. I have at least three of them here in the house. D'oh! Will have to dig out my lightest one for next time.

Today's mission was for Runner 5 to accompany the Girl Guides on a mission to try to find one of their members' sister. Turns out to be a two-parter. I was just thinking this morning, I'm getting a bit tired of these side missions, it will be nice to get back to more involved stories. And then we had this one, which is more like the regular season missions! Just what I was wanting.

Season 2, Mission S11: Zombies, Stretch!

1.62 miles – 32:03 minutes – 19:46 min/mile

A shortish mission today. No zombie chases, which was good, because I wasn't really feeling it today. Didn't go out until around 11:30 and it was already pretty warm, high 60s, and no clouds. Thankfully, with my meds, I can still go out in mild heat and not get too dragged down. But before long, it will be 80s and 90s rather than 60s, and I'll have to start my exercise earlier.

Today's mission started when the team got back to base, and was just various runners in the rec room doing stretches, Sam and Janine playing an arcade game, and people knitting and so forth. Kind of fun for a change of pace. I figured, I'd better not get any zombie chases while I'm inside the base! Although, as I recall, I did get a chase while I was inside someone's house once. Those zombies are everywhere!

I got to play Beastie Boys while I walked today! Turned out, only the Licensed to Ill album was protected. I usually listen to Ill Communication anyway, so I just put that on the playlist. Will see about getting an unprotected copy of Licensed to Ill but meanwhile I've got Beasties!

Season 2, Mission S10: Zombies, Climb!

1.97 miles – 36:14 minutes – 18:25 min/mile

Boy, it's getting warm these days! Didn't need my jacket, and my running pants were even a bit too warm. Have to start getting out the warm weather gear.

Good run. Two zombie chases, at 9 min (evaded after they got within 50 meters) and 20 min (evaded).  It makes a difference where on the lap the zombie chases start. The first one started after I'd gotten down the hill in front of the house, and was mostly run uphill. The second one started in back of the house at the top of the hill, so was downhill until I turned the corner by the road, and a slight incline after that. If I could just run downhill all the time it would be so much easier! Heh.

Finally got the app's Built-In Player to play Boston for me! Yay! Turns out one set of Boston tracks is m4p and the other is m4a. I thought the .m4a was the Apple download so I used the .m4p tracks, but they're the DRM-encoded ones that iTunes won't let other players use. So I deleted it and re-added just the .m4a tracks to my library and copied them to the iPhone and now it can use them. However. Now I have to find which of my other albums is in .m4p form and convert them so I can play them. Looks like some of my Beastie Boys music is protected, too. I'll work on getting unprotected copies of them next.

I went for a walk yesterday, too. Instead of zombies, I found a guided meditation to play while I walked and had a more relaxing exercise.

This mission was ostensibly an experiment to see how altitude affected zombies. In actuality, it was an attempt my Maxine to match-make Runners 4 and 6. As usual, Things Do Not Go As Planned.

Season 2, MIssion S9: Zombies, Row!

1.85 miles – 35:02 – 18:57 min/mile

A slightly shorter mission today. One zombie chase, at 11 minutes, which I evaded just after they got within 50 meters. I wonder if I should turn off the chases and just run every third lap or so. The chases really wear me out and don't seem to improve my speed or endurance much. I was thinking today, as I was evading the zombies, that in a real zombie apocalypse, I'd be toast if they were fast zombies. I could probably outrun a slowly shuffling zombie, if I wasn't too far from shelter, but other than that, I wouldn't make it very far.

Still fighting with my phone and iTunes to get it to play Boston while I run. Long time ago, I bought the CD. Then forgot I had it and bought it from iTunes. From then on, I've had a fight between iTunes and the CD copy. iTunes only wants to recognize its own copy, which I've long since deleted and now it seems iTunes doesn't remember I bought it. I can't make a playlist for Zombies, Run! with just the CD copy, because iTunes wants to play its copy, which isn't on the device, so it just complains that it can't play music that's not on the phone. I thought I had it solved by deleting the album from my iTunes library on the computer, which just left the CD copy. But now iTunes on the phone refuses to recognize the CD copy, because it's not in the library, even though it's on the phone in limbo somewhere.

So that will be my project for today. If I have to delete all traces of Boston from my phone and computer and start from scratch with the CD, I will get that album onto my phone and on a playlist I can play while I'm running.

Meanwhile. Today's mission was a boat race between Abel Township and New Canton. And, as usual, Things Do Not Go As Planned.

Season 2, Mission S8: Interview With a Girl Guide

2.24 miles – 41:43 minutes – 18:35 min/mile

Only one zombie chase today, at 32 minutes, which I evaded after they got within 50 meters. I walked the rest of the mission.

I have my missions set to go by time duration, rather than miles, and usually just let the default time stand. But today's mission was set to go for 51 minutes, which I thought was a bit much, so I decreased it to 42 minutes. One of these days maybe I'll do a longer mission, but I have an appointment today and I needed to finish anyway.

In today's mission, Runner 5 takes Jack and Eugene out to try to find the Girl Guides so they can interview them. Of course, things never go quite as planned. I kind of miss Jack and Eugene, since these days I never keep going after the mission's over. Maybe one day, I'll just listen to Radio Abel while I run.

Season 2, Mission S7: War Is The Answer

2.31 miles – 42:08 minutes – 18:15 min/mile

I almost didn't go out today. It's been raining off and on and I was feeling blah. Thought maybe I'd just do some yoga later. But I ended up putting on my walking clothes and heading out.

Today I decided to walk except for chases again, but OMG there were four chases! The first, at 11 minutes, was easy enough. I evaded without them getting close. The second was at 36 minutes and was a little harder. They got within 50 meters, just before I evaded. Then the third came immediately after the second, at 37 minutes! I mean immediately — I hadn't taken two steps before they were after me again. I knew I wasn't going to evade this time, so I didn't strain myself. Just jogged a little ways until I had to drop some supplies to distract them. Then there was a fourth chase at 39 minutes. I'd managed to get enough breath back to evade them this time, just after they'd got within 50 meters.

I wonder how they calculate the % increase in speed you have to maintain in order to evade? Is it based on the average speed you've done over the whole mission so far? In that case, every time you do a chase, it bumps up your average a little, and you end up having to go a little faster each successive chase. Or maybe they just calculate the speed on the first chase, and use that for each chase during the mission. Hm.

Today's mission was to accompany Runner 7 to his secret underground bunker to collect some supplies. I kind of like these side missions. They're not as stressful as the story ones where everyone's under attack and horrible things happen.

I need to spend some time copying music over to my new phone and reconstructing the playlists I had on it. I haven't used them in a while and had deleted a lot of music from my old phone because it didn't have enough space. Now I've got plenty of space on the new phone and could easily copy all my music from my computer. Tired of iTunes telling me I can't play that album through the app because it's in the cloud.

Season 2, Mission S6: Trefoil

2.34 miles – 44:34 minutes – 19:03 min/mile

Today I decided to walk the whole mission, except for zombie chases, so of course, there were no chases. I keep telling myself that a brisk walk is just as good as running, although I can't help being a little disappointed that even after three weeks exercising regularly, I'm still not doing much running. Getting old, I guess. But even walking is helping a lot, so I keep at it.

Today's mission had Runners 5 and 4 running decoy for a training mission, only to be swarmed by a pack of zombies and rescued by a troupe of Girl Guides. It was another fun one.

Just checked and there are still 10 more side missions for Season 2. That's a lot of missions! But if I keep going at three missions a week, I should be into Season 3 next month, finally. (I remember when I first started doing Zombies, Run! several years ago, thinking, oh no! I'm going to run out of missions one of these days, then what will I do? Now they're up to Season 8, and I'm still trying to get past Season 2.)

Season 2, Mission S5: Top 40

2.45 miles – 43:59 minutes – 17:47 min/mile

Well, as I feared, last week was rain and snow all week long, and the road was too muddy to run or walk on. So I did yoga indoors for my exercise, 30 min/day for MWF. It was nice, and seemed easier than the last time I tried to do yoga, which, of course, was before I started on my meds.

But today the road was pretty much dried out. The only muddy spots were where the wash runs through the yard and cuts across the driveway on either side. There's still water running in it and I had to kind of jump over it, but other than that, it was fine. The weather was perfect for running, mostly cloudy in the mid 50s. If only it could be like this all the time! Soon enough it will be blazing hot again.

I was planning to try to run every third lap, but I kept getting zombie chases! Three this time, at 14, 21, and 27 minutes. The first time was right after I'd finished a running lap (they got within 50 meters), and the second time was right near the end of a running lap (20 meters that time, but I managed to evade). The third time was about halfway through a walking lap (50 meters), but by then, I was so tired, I decided to just walk the rest of the way. Still, all that running got my time down under 18 min/mile!

It was a fun mission. The runners were headed for a CD store to stock up on music and ran into a pop star who was trying to evade her horde of zombie fans.

Season 2, Mission S4: Times New Roaming

2.22 miles – 44:33 minutes – 20:03 min/mile

Another week done! Today I walked except for zombie chases, of which there was only one, at 8 minutes. I evaded after they got within 50 meters. A slow one today, because of the walking, and also I started the mission by starting the generator to pump water, and then walking up the hill behind the house to check the water level in the tank. That slowed me down quite a bit — that's a steep hill, and I had to stop to climb up and unscrew the tank lid and such. Anyway, my splits were 19:36 and 19:05 for the two miles.

Weather was nice again today, sunny and in the 50s. Now they're forecasting rain Monday and snow Tuesday and Wednesday, so next week's exercise might be a challenge. May be out there slogging in the mud again. Just have to wait and see how it goes.

Today's mission had a reporter from the Rofflenet news program accompanying Runner 5 on a supply run. At the end he made sort of a speech about how the news of runners working together and succeeding in the face of diversity gives people hope in these dark times (paraphrasing wildly because my memory sucks), but it was strangely inspiring. Things aren't quite as bad as a zombie apocalypse, but times are dark enough.

Season 2, Mission S3: Whack-A-Mole

2.18 miles – 42:07 – 19:19 min/mile

I had a horrible migraine last night, and was still feeling yucky when I got up this morning, so I decided to just walk today, except for zombie chases. And there were two chases today, at 12 and 34 minutes. I evaded both of them, but the second one they got within 50 meters. My splits were 17:53 and 19:25 — slowed way down in the second mile, obviously not much energy today. But I got it done.

I was hoping the exercise and fresh air would clear away the rest of my headache, and it seems to have worked, so there's that! Weather was nice today, sunny but cool. Driveway's completely dried up. Should be clear the rest of this week. Now they're saying snow next Monday and Tuesday, but who knows.