When we first retired and were living in a vacation home for 30 days while they worked on Checked Out Jan, Scout and I would run almost every day.  We’d only do 2-2.5 miles as that was as far as we could go in the development before we had to cross the main road.

One morning we went running when it was 80 degrees and Scout did not do well.  She lagged behind at the end, her tongue was drooping, she didn’t drink a lot of water when we got home and it took her several hours to recover.  Normally she likes to run. As soon as we get out her sports bra(running harness) she stands up, stretches and heads for the door.   We could not figure out what the problem was until we checked the humidity. OOPS!  The humidity was 80%.

If you multiply temperature x humidity, 80×80=6400 that would be our ceiling.  If it was higher than 6400 Scout stays home.  The next day was comfortable and Scout did not have any issues.  A few days later the TH number was below 6000 and she had a bad run but not as bad as before.    Our threshold is now closer to 5000 with a few exceptions.

How long has it been since our last run, some times you just need to get out of the house.

Whats the weather look like the next few days?  If heat or rain will keep us inside, we’re going running.

Is there a breeze, especially from the north?

Is it earlier in the day before the sun has crested the tree line?

At 6:30am this morning in Oriental, NC it was 79 degrees with 95% humidity,  7505 is the TH number.   I went running at 9am and had a good run.  I did just 3 miles and there was a nice breeze.  I use a Nike GPS running watch that synchs with the Nike app and is really quite cool. After every run it gives you a little motivation saying, Good Effort, etc.     When I finished my run at the entrance to the marina this am I raised my hands over my head like I won the race and turned off the watch.  Todays saying was “Crowd Goes Wild”   I looked to my right and the guy cutting the grass saw me raise my hands and was clapping.    I waved to my adoring fans and moved on.

The featured image at the introduction of this post is the entrance to Sea Harbour Yacht Club.  The line across the street is a 2″dock line that is used as a speed bump and imitation finish line for joggers.

Jan has rebuilt the bimini on Checked out twice.  There are zippers around the edge where we can hang sun screens to give the cockpit some sun protection.

The sun sets almost directly behind the boat and these sun screens really do keep the temperature down in the boat.

This is the view from behind the boat.When I put them up yesterday they laid nice and flat but for some reason they look a little frumpy.  I’ll take frumpy because they overlap and help keep the sun off of the boat.  Scout is in her typical summer pose with her tongue hanging out.  We presently use a 5000 btu window air conditioner to keep us cool.   The ac is aimed at a hatch over the galley(kitchen).  We had planned to install a reverse cycle ac/heat unit this summer but the hull work messed up the budget.  We’ll install it in the fall because we can not live through the winter without serious heat.

One of our projects is to rebuild the bimini again.  The zipper ripped out on the right sun screen so I’ve used a line to hold it in place.  For those that are into knots I used a sheet bend, 3 clove hitches, a square knot and a cleat hitch.

This is the view from the cockpit and I really like how the sun screens over lap.

More to come,

Matt, Jan and Scout