Posting has been light but I have good reason----check out the sidebar! In addition to starting a blogroll (it isn't complete, if you'd like to be added please let me know in the comments), I have updated my writing progress. Progress bars won't work this time because I have no goals....just have to keep writing till it seems complete!
Life hasn't been all work and no play though. A few weeks ago, my officemate/friend/running buddy, Flamingo, encouraged me to sign up for a race for women's cancers. It is a good cause and the grad team would pay half the entrance fee so I signed right up. Of course at the time, we were running regularly so she convinced me* that we could totally do the 5 MILE race instead of the 5k. The messiness of dealing with all my data crap kept me from running for a few weeks earlier this month, although I had a few decent runs at RTL. After returning, Flamingo and I had a couple more runs but any real semblance of training was shot by that point.
The race was yesterday and we both went into it just hoping to run the whole thing, and finish closer to our 'easy' pace**. Of course, it was also not just 5 miles- we found out on Friday that it was actually 5.3 miles. Plus, all of a sudden it was cold!
The race itself was fun- I'm glad I did the longer one, as it was not crowded while the 5k had almost 6,000 people. Flamingo and I finished within a minute of each other and ended up running close to our fastest training pace***.
It would be really nice to continue running while I continue writing and finish. Running always helps me de-stress and I usually either work out some problematic thinking during the run or manage to completely shut work out of my brain altogether. It is one of the few things I have tried to make a priority but bad weather, shorter days and deadlines may be too difficult to keep it up.
*She is currently under the idea that the 5 mile was my idea. It wasn't, I promise.
**We are pretty comfortable and chatty at 10:00 min/miles.
***I managed 9:16 min/mile.
