On these hot afternoon runs I have been carrying a water bottle and wash cloth to wipe the sweat off my brow. Today’s experiment was to use Gatorade™ rather than just water. I really can’t say whether I was able to keep up the pace because of it or not. I find it too sweet. I am speculating whether I should be trying de-alcoholized beer as my fluid du jour. Though, by the end of the run, whatever I use has warmed up to air temperature. Real beer wouldn’t be good as alcohol is a diuretic and it makes you sweat even more.

This morning I sketched my concrete paver (interlocking brick) front and side walkway on 11×17 graph paper. I still haven’t found a good (read free or minimal cost) CAD program for Windows 2000/XP. The Google calculator was a great help in calculating areas and volumes. My 100' measuring tape has handy 6 ft 8 in type markings so I used those on my sketch. Google helped me calculate the paved areas (e.g. 20 feet 10 inches times 4 feet. The answer came up in square meters but the paver company quotes square feet per pallet. So Google helps me there too: 10 square meters in square feet. I could also calculate how much dirt I will have to remove and how much gravel and sand I’ll need.