Running: 7.26 miles today, sloooowly (1:30:06, average pace of 12:25 min/mile) mostly because of the snow, although I didn’t get out until almost 11am, still without breakfast, which meant that my fuel tank was even emptier than usual. I did run a little longer on the treadmill during the week, which more than made up for the drop in my long run — my total distance was 14.77 miles for the week, and so far I’m at 47.9 miles year-to-date. Next week (weather permitting) I’m going to try to get my Sunday run back over 9 miles. I’d like to be back to 10 mile runs by the beginning of February.
Writing: Including 340 words today (the kids’ Sunday fencing lesson = guilt-free weekend writing time), I wrote 1,914 words in Breezeway this week, bringing the total wordcount for the project to 84,309. I wrote at least 100 words every day this week except for Wednesday and Thursday (and I’m kicking myself for blowing those days, because I had no good reason for not writing). I’m slow, easily discouraged, and tire easily — it’s like exercising a muscle that has been allowed to atrophy. But there are moments when I feel like it’s starting to come back; on Tuesday evening, for example, I sat down at 10:30pm intending to spend 20 minutes writing before going up to bed, just so I could check the box for the day. I looked up 45 minutes later, not knowing where the time had gone, and realized that I’d knocked out more than 700 words. It was “ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY,” repeated 78 times, but I still think that’s progress, don’t you?
Final note: On top of the snow and the lack of food (or caffeine — I really need to stock back up on Espresso Gu), one other thing that probably slowed me down during my run this morning is that I played only podcasts during my run today, instead of mixing some fast-paced music in with the talky stuff. I am, however, at long last close to finishing Dan Carlin’s nearly six-hour final episode of his Death Throes of the Republic series about the decline and fall of the Roman republic. Good thing, too, because I just downloaded his latest episode, which is much shorter: only four hours. I can’t say I would ever wish my commute were longer, but his Hardcore History show comes close.
The Unfocused Life 