Heh. Looked that way on paper, coming in to the week; my running mileage, overall, dropped a bit (well, except that it really didn't, it was just a bit more spread out) and with the absence of weight work, I spent more time than usual at the dojo. More on that in a minute.
I also did my first speed workout, which went well. The plan was to do 1/4 mile repeats at a 5K pace. The operative question for someone who has never bothered to run a 5K being, what is my 5K pace? (The shortest race I've ever run was 4 miles, and that was in 1993, IIRC.) So I settled on "a fast but seemingly sustainable pace, slower than a sprint" and was probably running somewhere about the pace of a high 7/s mile. I have no idea whether or not I could maintain that for 5K, but the point of these workouts is to improve leg turnover, not train for a 5K, so I'll keep shooting for about that pace. My 1/4 mile track is slightly longer than 1/4 mile, and is also interesting in that it has some terrain. I picked a stretch of road reasonably close to home - far enough for a warm-up/cool-down run to and from - that has no cross streets and thus no traffic worries, and good, newer asphalt. It's also somewhat uphill in one direction, thus downhill in the other. So one fun pacing challenge, when I choose to do it, will be to try to make the pace as close as possible, both ways. (Why? No reason, other than the challenge just presents itself, so why not?) And it's been a lovely week for running with cooler temperatures that are about to vanish. Not something I'm looking forward to.
My other new thing this week - some morning karate training. We have a newer student, a west coast transfer. He's second dan in Kyokushin and taught in that style, and has a lot of fighting experience. (Kyokushin folk don't do point sparring, either - it's full contact. Which is cool with me; we don't point spar often - I've probably done it three times in five plus years of training - and I would happily never do it again, as I don't get the, um, point. It's karate, not tag.) Anyway, his techniques are somewhat different from ours, and he's going to help me with power development and I'm going to help him learn our kata, and I am also getting not so vague ideas about putting a kettlebell in his hands. I've also started doing a bit of teaching again. I'm trying to keep it to one day a week so it doesn't get to feeling like I'm living at the dojo again.
In non-exercise news, I'm seriously considering going back to school. It would be a rather complete change of field, so I know I'm going to need a bit more undergrad work first, but at this point, I can't even remember everything I took in college, so I don't know how much. I've ordered my transcripts and should get them next week, and then I'll be able to get a better handle on things. It's scary and I'm a bit overwhelmed; I know I need some guidance and I'm in the process of looking for help in that area, too. I also have to take the GRE's at some point, but don't know if that should be sooner or later. (Special side note: I went to the online test prep area, and the very first question I read was a reading comprehension question that used an environmental issue as the basis for their first statement, or whatever you want to call it. Well, I RIPPED into the premise of the statement, which in my mind was too grossly overgeneralized to use to draw any conclusions, and found their questions irrelevant. Bad omen?) It's a long potential journey, but it feels much more real, tangible, practical, and worth doing than the law school idea ever did. Oh, and shit, before you ask, I'm thinking about a doctorate in physical therapy.
Hope everyone has a safe 4th!
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