Cleanse Week.

This week I did 3 five mile runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Started the week Sunday with a 40 minute workout video.  A pretty hom-hum week.  But the weekend!  We're talking 48 hour Oz Cleanse.  It's rough.  I have no energy.  This morning for breakfast was quinoa and prunes.  Morning snack was the green blended drink (Kale and pineapple) shown above.  So far, that's the worst tasting thing.  Lunch was a frz-blueberry/banana snack.  Dinner was a saurkraut and apple starter, followed by a soup that contains fennel, cabbage, shitake mushrooms, red onions and (thank God) some actual seasoning.  The best tasting thing has been a simple salad: radishes, green beans, celery with sea-salt/pepper/olive oil.  But nothing really fills you up and I'm wondering how well I'm going to sleep.

Hopefully I'm full of energy to start next week.  I may have a beer Monday morning.  Hill workouts start Tuesday!

Cleanse UPDATE:  2:00 Sunday afternoon.  Hunger and headache.  I really want normal food again.

A Well Rounded Week.

So we may have put a down payment on a house - with a little stress - this week.  The house is in Arlington Mass.  It's pretty old and small (and expensive), but sits about as close to work as I could find and is said to have great schools and parks.  High school track is only 1 mile away, so maybe some speed work this week.  Timing could be a problem, since we don't close till late May and may be booted from our current house before that since our buyer backed out.  We're in the clear in terms of selling - but since a new buyer can come in and demand an earlier move out - could get very difficult in terms of living conditions.  No doubt - relo sucks.

And with that background - I managed 2 runs - 5 miles each; a swim yesterday (1200) and 2 strength workouts (~1.5 hours) - so 3.5 hours total.  My best week in sometime.  Just in time to catch either a late season head-cold or allergies.  Felt horrible Thursday - better yesterday and today - but still congested (and lazy).  I was suppose to do 7.4 trails with a friend this morning - but bagged it.  So a solid, but unspectacular week.   

Relocating: Buying and Selling

I'm in the process of relocating, which has made life - in addition to training - a little more difficult this spring.  Two weeks ago I managed 3 runs - but not much else.  Last week was 2 runs and a swim - but no strength.  I do have a new goal - which is always good - to run a fast mile.  I've had that goal before and not followed through - so hopefully this will be the year.  But first I need to get through the next few weeks.

10 days ago we put in an offer for a house in Arlington, however the inspection turned up existing termite damage.  We love the house - so we are proceeding with another (more specific) inspection - but it stinks.  Also, we luckily got an offer on our existing house - but the relocation procedure is taking forever.  So I wake up, once again, with a world of doubt and worry.  

Fortunately the kids have been great.  Yesterday, Julia went in with me to work - as I had to email documents to relo - and just loved playing in my office.  Then later that afternoon, they adopted a caterpillar - and named it Buttercups.    An amazing source of energy and optimism, those kids.      

Also in the good news category - I got the newest Tim Powers book in the mail.  Always a great read.

Hard Running.

or running hard.  I did 5 miles Friday with Larry sub-8.  Then we did another 5 Monday ~7:40-7:50.  It was hard, my lungs were searing.  Today I was by myself and I did the loop in ~40.  I didn't run hard, but did 2x3:00 pickups for fun.  I was surprised that I came in at 8s, since the rest of the pace felt pretty slow.  Tomorrow I'm up to Boston house-hunting.  I should be able to get another run/swim in Friday.  I was planning on swimming - but the weather looks pretty nice.

random mile training plan.

Friday Open Thread.

Whew.  Finally, a great week of training.  Nothing Earth-shattering - but for mid-winter I'll take it.  It all started with a gotta-get-out the door run Monday - by myself - a measly 3.8 miles.  Then I found the pool again Tuesday and then again Wednesday.  Each day I did my warm-up twice.  Doesn't sound exciting - but adding an extra 200 at the end gives me 1200 yards so I'll take it.  I also squeezed in a strength workout Tuesday night (or was it Monday?  don't matter).  Then today - it happened.  An actually good run!  Only 5 miles, but I ran hard with Larry for most of it.  We covered the distance in ~7:40-7:50 range.  It felt good to run hard.

Inspiration.  A lot of it comes from another work friend who left 'Once a Runner' on my desk.  It *really* is the best novel ever written about running.  Having said that, I'm only 28 pages in - but it's been a good 28 pages and usually I have trouble 'getting into books'.  In other cool news, while digging around for recent R applicaitons for a review I'm (suppose to be) writing, I found this awesome graphic creation  using R and Google Charts.  I'm pretty excited to try this on some work applications.  Hopefully March will be the month:  buy a house, sell a house, have fun with family, run, swim, knock-it-out at work.