A Small Victory

Rules are made to be broken, right?

All of my carefully planned, no-pressure rules for running have pretty much gone out the window this past week. I had that really good run last Saturday, and just HAD to see how far I'd gone... which lead me to start planning my runs by mileage, as opposed to time. Then again, planning by time was starting to not work out so well because I really couldn't figure out how far to go before heading for home. (I almost never run out and backs; they tend to be extremely boring, plus the timing never works out because I tend to run faster later in the run.) So, that lead to me planning by mileage (I picked 4 miles, since that was what I covered in the comfy run), which lead to my noting the time and switching on the mental calculator, to now knowing my time by mile. Which, this morning, was 9:24 - not fast, not even my old "comfy" pace of 8:30, 9/per, but a damned sight better than a month ago in all respects.

I've had people tell me they admired my patience, to which I can only say, look what patience gets you? The ever-mythical "results."

It's been a great week overall. I did not start NROL/W S5 yesterday: will start tomorrow. Yesterday I had yoga class in the morning and took a long, unnecessary walk in the evening to the post office to mail my tax return. Mostly I needed to cool off, because for the first time in over a decade, I actually will be getting money back from both the state and the feds. This was completely unexpected: I thought I would owe both, hence my waiting until the last minute to do my taxes. It's not a lot, but going into the exercise with a shitload of dread, expecting to write out a couple of pretty big checks and then coming out ahead - damn! Priceless. I may splurge and buy myself a couple of pairs of running shorts, because I'm sort of over the skirt thing.

I've been kicking around a few half marathon training schedules. Most of them don't accommodate much strength training; those that do include two days at the most. I had sort of been thinking I'd do the Female Body Breakthrough workouts (just the gym stuff, not the cardio, or as she likes to call it, the "metabolic workouts") during the training, but that works out to three days of weights, three days of karate, and five days of running, which, if you factor in a rest day (and I will), means two a days most days. Take out one day of strength training, and I can at least do a decent job of balancing easy and hard days. So I may shelve FBB (which does look interesting enough to do) until post half mary, and look for something else to do for about 8 weeks.

I have a good 2 1/2 months to get a schedule tacked to the fridge - I imagine I'll figure it out by then. In the mean time - keep on building the base, keep on with NR, keep kicking and punching. (Come to think of it, I still have one more new kata to learn...)