Back to the Usual

Inside today…

…and outside.

Week of April 14, 2014:

Monday: Walked 15 minutes

Tuesday:  Running work-out.  20 minutes total with 10 minutes running

Wednesday: Walked 24 minutes

Thursday: Walked 19 minutes

Friday: Biked to and from Shiraz for a lunch date + walked 23 minutes

Saturday: Running work-out.  29 minutes total with 20 minutes running

Sunday: Walked 22 minutes.

Total minutes walked/ran: 152.  Estimated miles: 11.1.

Now that there’s a race on the schedule, it’s back to the usual weekly updates…or at least that’s the goal.  I’ve had a really lovely weekend.  Paul and I went to his family celebration yesterday, where we ate and laughed and relaxed for a few hours.  His mom made a pan of absolutely delicious vegetarian enchiladas, which we loved.  She’s relatively new at cooking for vegetarians, and I’m so touched by her efforts to feed us well.  I’m hoping we can visit his parents this summer before we move to Austin.  (And just for the record, we like to feed them when we visit, so there will be lots of kitchen love, I’m sure.)

Today I alternated work time with fun time: general chemistry for the former and lots of my favorite things for the latter.  My friend Tonya came over today to meet Lucy; Tonya wanted to meet the kitty before agreeing to cat-sit for me next month.  It was nice to catch up with her just the two of us; it’s been a while since we did that.  For our coffee date, I made these cookie bars, and she brought over strawberry cake.  I brewed us a French press’s worth of coffee using beans from What’s the Buzz, our local coffee roaster who makes freakin’ fantastic coffee.  As I was telling Tonya about giving her the wireless internet password for my apartment and letting her know she was welcome to anything in the kitchen, too, I mentioned the coffee, and she said, “Well, in that case, I definitely think I’ll be happy to take spend some time here!”  So it turns out that really good coffee is the thing to offer Tonya when asking for a big favor.  I love that!

Work-out-wise, my efforts have been focused on daily walking.  It’s hard for me to tear myself away from the computer, but I’ve been very diligent about getting at least 15 minutes of “leisure” walking into my day.  (Leisure = not work- or errand-related.)  It’s a great healthy habit to cultivate, and I never regret going for a walk.  Running-wise, I can only hope to keep up with JD when we run our 10K together.  I saw on Facebook that he ran nine miles yesterday, while I ran…um…two.  We’re not exactly in the same place, training-wise.  But it’s okay—I’d love to be able to run that 10K with him; it is not, however, the end of the world if he finishes before me.  We’re out there to have fun and enjoy our sport.  My real running goal for the next year?  To beat my marathon finishing time (4:56:50) when I run Toronto in 2015.

The Toronto Marathon is a long way off, so until then, it’s daily walking and a few runs each week and (maybe, just maybe) a running habit that sticks beyond race day.  It’d be nice to stop being such a yo-yo runner (you know, like a yo-yo dieter, but with running instead).  I have forgotten what it’s like to have a regular running routine, which makes me sad.

 Until next time, sweet readers!