Decisions...

Well the countdown of "days left of employment" has begun in these here parts (55 business-days including today), and that is just sort of depressing. What once may have held a vague interest and excitement of changes has turned to basically political mud-slinging...and unfortunately we/I am on the receiving end. Some of us that are trying to remain light and up-beat (I mean you can either laugh or cry about this...and laughing is so much better for the soul) about the situation have envisioned an 'American Idol' sort of first day at the new job...as we file into the office we are separated into two groups and sent into two different conference rooms; suddenly the "man" walks in and says you are dismissed, while simultaneously the other group of staffers is being told they have been accepted. But there is always hope that our soon to be new "boss" will select me and/or a few others from these parts to move forward for at least a couple more months. I suppose only time will tell, in 55 business-days to be exact.

On to other stuff now -- I am continuing to follow the plan that trainer-Steve has laid out for me with my running (even though I still protest rest days). So my schedule for the past two weeks went something like this:

3/30 - scheduled rest day - walked for 15 minutes on treadmill, lots of stretching, little bit of ab work.
3/31 - run 5 miles
4/01 - training session with Steve, elliptical for 4.68 miles
4/02 - run 6 miles
4/03 - elliptical for 7.36 miles
4/04 - elliptical, bike, walking on treadmill for a combined half hour and 4.5 miles then training session with Steve followed up by walking 4.62 miles on the treadmill.
4/05 - run 10 miles

4/06 - scheduled rest day - walked for 1.5 miles on treadmill, stretching and ab work
4/07 - training session with Steve followed by 4.25 miles walking on treadmill
4/08 - run 5 miles
4/09 - training session with Steve followed by 3.47 miles walking on treadmill
4/10 - run 5 miles
4/11 - training session with Steve followed by 4.66 miles walking on treadmill
4/12 - scheduled day off -- and I actually stayed away from the gym and rested, I suppose being Easter helped!

With the upcoming work merger I have lots of time off coming that I need to take so am hoping to work in my days off work with scheduling my longer runs. I am basically taking off Monday's and Friday's from now until the end of June and then scheduling a bunch of other days off as well. Anyhow, I was off work yesterday, April 13th. I slept in some (not on purpose really) and headed off to the gym and got there about 9am. Did my normal stretching and assessing of how my back was feeling and then found a treadmill in the front row directly in front of the only tv now scheduled to show ESPN. I did a little more stretching, a little walking warm-up and then set the treadmill up for my slow 12 minute mile pace for 60 minutes...when that time was up, I stretched just a little bit, grabbed some water and some gum and re-set the machine for another 60 minutes...things were going well until about halfway through when ESPN was now repeating headlines and the gym was pretty empty so there was no one to really watch and my music was also repeating; for a brief moment I thought of giving up, I began to imagine that my legs and feet were hurting. I took my headphones off for a bit and tried to just focus on running. My thoughts turned to all I have come through in the past year to be in this moment right here and now! I wished trainer-Steve wasn't on vacation, I could use his butt-kicking right about now, but just thinking about him for a moment and I could hear his voice "U CAN DO IT...U WILL DO IT". Meanwhile while all this was going on in my head, the last 30 minutes had ticked by and it was time to re-set the treadmill one last time, and this time for 38 minutes. I was refreshed, I was re-energized, a new batch of people had come into the gym and this was it...I was just 3.1 miles away from completing my first 13.1 half-marathon distance run! With just a mile and a half to go I'd received a text from trainer-Steve asking how it was going, I responded saying I was almost done and that I'd text him when it was complete. 12:01pm - text message was sent - I had just completed by first half-marathon distance run *. Yeah Me!!

Now, comes the decision making time...the Hermes 10-Miler. It is just 11 days away, I need to decide if I should sign up and attempt it or not. I am still leery about running on pavement, even though my foot did not bother me after the 5k, I'm pretty sure the fear is all psychological... Ugh, a decision needs to be made...


*note, yes I did just say that it was my first, meaning there will be more to follow...