Happy happy birthday to me–and it has been one so far. My birthday tradition is to take the day off work and spend some time thinking about where I am in life, where I want to go, etc. Usually I do a few exercises from whatever self-help book is currently my favorite–this time it was a Cheryl Richardson exercise from her Life Makeovers newsletter–and I re-read what I wrote in previous years. It hasn’t changed much from year to year, which is a good sign. This year was especially rewarding because when I was 35 I had two answers to “if you died right now, what would your biggest regrets be?” One was leaving a big mess behind me (and I’m working on that, although I haven’t made much progress), and the other was not having written my “turkey book” (which was my NaNoWriMo project!) Plus I had said how proud I was to have run two miles the weekend before with very little walking! So with a marathon and a “novel-length work” under my belt, I feel pretty good about 40. I don’t mind getting older as long as I’m satisfied with the amount life I’m getting out of my years–and I am, today. Yay running!
I did a slow five miles this morning. I haven’t run in about 3 weeks, since we’ve been away on the weekends and the dark cold mornings have been a disincentive I haven’t been able to conquer. But I haven’t fallen as far back as I feared. Despite stopping for quite a while (and I haven’t turned the Forerunner’s autopause back on yet) for some dog time, I still averaged 11:16 per mile. Total 56:16, splits 11:00, 11:25, 10:55, 11:49, 11:05.
It’s been amazingly warm for the time of year. On a mid-November run the ponds were iced over and Stanley Lake was partially frozen, but it melted again and today there was no snow or ice anywhere, with temps in the forties–great for running. Partially cloudy, windy, with a tiny bit of spitting rain at times. My dog time was spent trying to get the boxers on Schoolbus Hill to come over and say hi. The younger one (brindled and white) wouldn’t get closer than a few hundred feet and would turn and run as I approached. The older one (standard fawn color) joined the younger but wouldn’t come over either, even though he’s come up and greeted me plenty of times before–but that’s when the tubby black mutt led the way. Interesting dog personality variations!