Running and Patent Law (Really!)

This morning, I joined Frank and Alex for a nice little 7 mile recovery run at Town Lake. The running was delightful, and I was pleased that I seem to be in pretty good shape after yesterday's race. We even did striders afterwards to finish off a good day of exercise. Pace was just over 9:00/mile, and it felt great.

The fun part of the run, though, was that Alex was on one of his rants, and he entertained us most of the way through the route. Without being too specific, it was generally about patent law and the current trend towards abusing the existing laws as regards computer/Internet related items. Once my friend gets going, you just let him run with it, and he'll vent until he's better. It makes for a fun time, because you can just listen and run. I admittedly egged him on a bit to keep him going, but I think it was all for a good cause. It is something I'm interested in, after all, and I always enjoy picking people's minds for their ideas. The conversation was on a much higher level than it usually is, that's for sure! It made the run fly by. I understand, by the way, that my usual pace group does the same thing to me on long runs, but today it was Alex's turn to carry the conversation. :-)

Afterwards, I did the full stretching routine with Alex, Emily and Shannon, and saw most of my usual troops as they finished up their Wilke workout. It was good to see Richard back out there. Gilbert had yet another new singlet color and design available this morning, so I snapped one of those up (it matches my new Fila shorts) so that I can be more coordinated when I wear my new "lucky" shorts. I'm not superstitious, of course, but if you set a PR wearing a certain pair of shorts, etc., you stick with them as your race outfit until they fail you, right? Or, is that just me? :-)