Ever Closer and Ever Farther

I really hate Mondays, but not because I have to go back to work after having two days off, although that certainly sucks. However, I’ve gotten to the point where I get bored if I have more than a few days without any structured time consuming the middle of my day. I feel lethargic and lazy if I’m not doing something from 7 AM to 6 PM.

No, I hate Mondays because they are the day when the shit hits the fan at work. All the work that people put off on Friday suddenly becomes really important and it all needs to be done. Mondays are the biggest days for work coming into my inbox, by far. Today was not too bad, although still not an easy Monday. Boot.

Anyway, the weekend was good. I broke another distance record on Sunday by running 8 miles. I took my sweet time doing it, but hey, that’s the point of a long run: endurance rather than speed. I was very pleased with that effort but won’t be upping the mileage again until at least the weekend after this one coming up. For now, I will keep it at 8 miles. I think I will also stay at 4.25 miles as well on my easy runs.

Tonight I am not going to the gym so my legs can fully recover from yesterday, even though they feel OK right now. I’m supposed to be going to a performance of French opera scenes at Peabody tonight, which hopefully won’t last more than 2 hours. So, my tentative schedule for the week is going to be:

Monday: Totally off

Tuesday: 4.25 miles (easy run)

Wednesday: Tempo Run (1 mile warm up; 3 mile tempo; 1 mile cool down)

Thursday: Cross training

Friday: 4.25 miles (easy run)

Saturday: 4.25 miles (easy run)

Sunday: 8 miles (long run)

If all goes according to plan, that should be just about 26 miles for the week. If I get caught at work or lose the motivation to wake up early one morning when my schedule demands it, then there’s always next week.

On another note, I am still holding out hope for getting up to New York next Saturday to see the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials in Central Park. However, hotel rooms in Manhattan are killing my budget so we’ll see if I can find something relatively affordable. The cheapest I’ve found is $200 a night, which isn’t terrible because I haven’t gone anywhere in a while. And finally, I’ve posted the photos from the Baltimore Running Festival on my Flikr site. Check them out by clicking on the link on the toolbar!