Seeking a better country...

On Monday, work kept me till nearly midnight, so I had to put this off till Tue.

The blog motivated me to do a workout, not just grind out some miles.  I ended up with a 2 mile warmup, then 4@ 7 min pace, and 3 to cool down.  I covered the display with my shirt, and didn't look at it through 3 commercial breaks on Biggest Loser.  At that time I only had .5 left at harder effort, so it came in okay.  It's a good thing I don't have any races planned in the next couple months; I'd just be disappointed with the results.

So I've been thinking about perceived effort and suffering.  I think I'll tailor my workouts to target suffering for an amount of time.  After a certain point, it's just about how much can you ignore or set aside the pain, and if I don't practice, I won't have game on a race day.

Ugh.  Gina didn't go home, and even worse, she won immunity.   

Another 10k on the tm.  I wasn't feeling particularly inspired, and it took me 55 minutes.  They are miles, but I'm not very proud of the pace and effort.  For tonight, it's all I mustered.

It's weird not having a spring marathon breathing down my neck for the first time since 2009  Maybe that's the problem--nothing tangible to work toward.  But that's fine, sometimes life intervenes.  If running is reduced solely to a mental health exercise for a little while, so be it.  For March I'll set the goal to run 4 times per week, and be closer to 30 than 20 mpw.

Jack came with.  The sunshine tricked me into thinking it was warm enough to bring him.  It wasn't.  He kept taking his gloves off.  "Uh-oh!!"  Then I would put them back on.  Seconds later, "Uh-oh!!"  This happened around 2 dozen times, so it was hard to get any consistent rhythm...which was fine, because lately I like stopping and taking a little break every half mile or so.

'Twas another brighter day than usual.  Enough snow has melted that I could roll up a few of the Christmas lights.  I waited till peak warmth at mid-day to run.  After fixing the girls' bikes, they bailed and said they didn't want to come with me.  So I ran alone to Freedom Hills Park.  When the switchback trail beckoned, I couldn't refuse.  Halfway up, the wet trail gave way to slippy, snowy trail.  Still, I continued on, slipping all over the place, running through the weeks at the very edge where the snow had melted.  Repeated the cycle three times.  Ugh.  Between the snow and my current fitness level, getting to the top was a threshold-type activity.  I could have used a drink; alas, it will be 2 months before the drinking water is available.  I ran home.

In the evening we went couch shopping.  I bring this up because 18 months ago I ran a first place finish at a 5k in Fruit heights.  The prize was a $20 gift certificate to Crown Burger in Layton.  I finally redeemed it.  The shake was great.