:o

School starts a week from today!  Yowza.  I’m heading over to the campus tomorrow to buy books (gulp) and scope out the building locations.  I’ll be able to take the local commuter train there - it’s probably as easy for me to take the train as it is to drive, plus I don’t have to worry about parking (the lots aren’t free on this campus, and reportedly fill quickly - leaving meter parking in the city.  No thanks.).  I’m half really looking forward to it and half scared to death.  I can’t even remember the simple stuff - do I usually take books to class?  Is there homework BEFORE the first class (and how would I know)?  I seem to remember coming into at least a few first classes where the prof expected we’ve have already read something.  Do people still take notes the old fashioned way, or do they take laptops to class?  (Not that I have a choice - I don’t have a working laptop and I’m not about to go out and buy one.)  Anyway, it should be a big adventure - I figure if I make it to the right place for my first class on time, things will pretty much fall into place from there.

I hope.

My intermediate adventure - pet sitting.  Not that the sitting itself is a particular adventure - I know the critters I have to manage and they’re a good lot - but two of them are cats pushing 20.  In fact I’ve been left with a kitteh coffin and a burial cloth (per the respective burial wishes of their people) Just In Case.  They’re both in apparent good health, but at that age, you just never know.  I had stern talks with both kittehs in question this morning, giving them strict instructions not to kick off during the next week.   Hopefully that did some good. 

Workouts & runs are going according to schedule.  I finished my last planned go of Female Body Breakthrough, Stage 2 Workout B, which is as far as I plan to go with those workouts for now.  I liked Stage 2 much more than Stage 1, which (as written) was just too easy, coming right on the heels of NROL/W.   I made it work but it took a ton of mods; in retrospect I probably should have started with Stage 2 and used that and Stage 3.  Oh well, done is done.

I have five strength workouts left in my half marathon training plan, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.  When I mapped out my plan I thought I might just continue with Stage 2, or perhaps  play with Stage 3 at this point, but I’m mentally done with Stage 2 and don’t feel like fussing with Stage 3 for just 2 1/2 weeks of work.  I might pull out an old workout I got from a trainer - it’s Something Completely Different, total body, 10 exercises, two sets each, mostly compound exercises with a couple of isolation exercises thrown in, or I might use Authentic Strength, an Art of Strength workout that I particularly enjoy.  I’ll probably flip a coin on Sunday and roll with that.

Also, I’ve been thinking I might continue lifting through my Insanity rotation, assuming that happens.  Nothing crazy, just two to three days per week to keep my hand in the weight room.  Might use Authentic Strength then, if I don’t use it next, or something else entirely.  I also expect to keep running to some extent during that rotation, because - woo! -  the November trail run I’ve been eyeing is ON (link is to last year's website).  It’s just a 15K (9.3 miles) but the terrain is supposedly pretty challenging.  The race is Sunday after Thanksgiving, which (if all goes according to schedule) is a week after Insanity ends.  I figure to take a full week off after that before I start rolling with Maximum Strength.

And somewhere in there, presumably, will be my belt exam.