My goodness, was I ever glad to see the end of this past week. Come Friday, I felt like I could lie down and sleep and sleep and sleep.
The eldest and I watched a fantastic film on Friday night called Starbuck. (You can watch the trailer here.) It’s a Canadian film, and it was a total delight. Essentially, it’s about a man who is a bit of a screw-up. Something befalls him – something really weird – and he decides to take the opportunity to take charge of his life in a really amazing kind of way.
I’ve really been enjoying the little bits of good weather we;ve been having (today’s misery notwithstanding). I’ve been puttering around the garden a bit and doing my best to encourage growth here and there. Want to know something funny? I’ve been finding my lost marbles and pretty stones, one at a time, every time I’m out in the garden. They’re almost always half-buried in the lawn or on the edge of a flowerbed. Damn squirrels! At least I am benefitting from their haphazard job. The weird thing is, I recognize my lost rocks when I see them.
I think part of the reason for my fatigue is that I’ve been training extra hard for my upcoming 5K. In fact, when I started training awhile back I didn’t realize there was to be a second 5K (!) in my near future and that it would be coming up much sooner than I had planned. Shopper’s Drug Mart invited me to participate in the Run for Women in support of the Women’s Mental Health Program at The Royal, and so I decided to take the plunge. I will write more about this event later (there is much more to it!), but for now I will say that I am being diligent about sticking to my training plan and faithfully doing my intervals.
Progress is slow, as you can imagine, but there is progress, which is satisfying. I just finished my week two intervals, which consists of a five-minute warm up and cool down, with 10 intervals of two-minute runs punctuated with one-minute walks in between. To my surprise, I did this three times this week and haven’t keeled over yet. It gives me hope. Next week I’m up to three-minute runs with one-minute walks.
Last week at the YMCA I decided to suck it up and try some of the weight stations. And you know, it’s not as bad as I thought.
A side benefit of all of this activity is that I am feeling stronger and somehow, a bit taller. I hope I can hold on to this momentum because I feel like it’s going somewhere really good.
Yesterday I decided to hop on my bike and go to Britannia Beach. It was a pretty nice ride, although the wind was howling around my ears and I found myself wishing for ear muffs.
This was the scene at the beach. The water levels are still quite high:
As I biked home again I spent a bit of time thinking about running v. cycling. I have come to the conclusion that I find cycling more enjoyable than running. Perhaps it is because it satisfies my attention span a little better. I do like that I can see more and get further in a much shorter time when I bike, whereas when I run, I suffer in slow-motion. I’m still waiting to get better at this running thing!
