Weekend Rehash

After a lovely and relaxing holiday weekend, I’m back in the office trying to do as little work as possible. While I keep my productivity at a relatively high level, I have come to the realization that much of one’s early career is spent doing just enough work to get noticed every once in a while, while also avoiding the propensity to do a lot more work for the same amount of praise. I know that’s a cynical way to look at it, and I don’t lack a work ethic, but really, so long as I do my job and do it well, I’ll be OK. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, and doing just a litte bit extra carries a good amount of upside to be rewarding. However, one’s early career operates on the Law of Diminishing Returns, which basically states that for every unit of supply provided beyond a certain point, the resulting unit of demand (and profit) is a little less. Thus, you must find the right area where the work you do results in the greatest gain, professionally speaking, as possible. Anything beyond that, and you’re wasting your time. This is where I am right now; trying to find that right balance at all times. Maybe it’s the cold greyness of January that produces this feeling and when March rolls around I’ll feel better about spending 10-12 hours at the office every day. Probably not, though.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, running-wise. It was freezing here all week, which seriously challenged my running schedule, but I made it. Sunday was forecast to be REALLY cold and windy so I moved my long run up to Saturday. Saturday turned out to be a nice day for running: partly cloudy and about 40 with only a slight breeze. I did 8 miles at a decent clip for a long run and I wasn’t horribly sore afterwards as I was following my 7 miler back before Christmas. After that run, I could barely walk. But on Saturday, I was sore, but not crippled, and felt fine after watching a movie on the couch. In fact, I felt just as good as I do after a 5 miler, which is a good sign for me because that means a.) I ran within my limits for those 8 miles and b.) my body was able to handle the mileage easily. My only problem was that I ate too little afterwards and ended up having a headache and stomach ache until dinner that night.

After the run I only ate some yogurt, pasta and pastries (maybe something else, I can’t remember). Not enough to make up for a 1,000 calorie run. That night Annie and I went out to dinner and I housed a cup of clam chowder, a French Dip sandwich, fries and a piece of lemon coconut cake. I could have eaten more, but didn’t want to push it.

I took Sunday off (windchills were around 15 on Sunday afternoon!) and then ran yesterday. However, it was not as warm as forecasted so I bit the bullet and went to the gym. Compared to running outside, the treadmill is a poor substitute. Plus there’s something about the treadmill that makes my lower leg muscles burn for about 2 miles, which makes the entire experience more unpleasant. I have no idea why that happens. So, I did my 5 miles despite the pain, which faded as I ran, and came home.

After re-tooling my training program and inserting the gap runs on most Saturdays, I found that I still had trouble meeting my mileage requirements later on in the program. So, I decided to take some days off work to allow me to get those longer runs in and not worry so much. It works out well because I have 5 PTO days from 2007 that I carried over into this first quarter, and they have to be used by March 31st in order for them to count. Otherwise I’d start eating into my 2008 PTO allowance. I’ve chosen 4 days, mostly Fridays, to take off where I can get a nice 7 miler in later in the morning and then enjoy some time off in the afternoon. The 5th day is the Friday before the National Half Marathon, which will allow me and Annie to go down to Washington on Friday and enjoy the expo, etc, and not worry about beating Friday traffic or any of that.

This week my mileage should total 26 miles. I’ve already gotten 5 of them in, with another 5 tomorrow and Thursday, followed by 3 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday. This week is going to be cold again, but the weekend should warm up, thankfully.

And finally, I read John L. Parker, Jr.’s Again to Carthage over the weekend. I will have to write a full review of the book, but suffice to say that this is a must read for any serious runner. It’s an engrossing mesh of the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional existences that a runner experiences. The fact that Cassidy is an elite runner sharpens those existences considerably. It makes you want to go out and run a marathon, basically.