So far this spring things have been moving at lightening speed in several areas of my life. Probably the biggest change would be selling our condo downtown and moving to the Rosedale area into our house!! To say we are excited is an understatement, and now that we are settled into the place I couldn’t feel any more at home. The dogs are loving their yard and new neighbors (two boxers). One of the other aspects of this move is that our running routes will be altered a bit on the days we don’t meet our group. With IF (intramural fields) less than a mile away, Shoal Creek nearby, and our central location I feel like we can get to even more great running areas than we could before. Yes, we aren’t close to the trail anymore, but in my opinion that is no loss. The only interesting part is when I decide to venture way off the grid and lose myself completely. That’s always fun 😉 and good for a few extra unplanned miles.
Within this same time period I got accepted to the Master of Arts in Counseling program at St. Edward’s University in Austin. Yes people, I am going to be a therapist! Again, I am extremely excited to begin the program this May and start working towards my license. I have always known that I would pursue a career in Psychology, but now that it is finally happening for real I am so so elated. I decided not to go directly into graduate school after UT due to my indecision regarding schools and the fact that I did not want to leave Austin to go to one of the programs I was looking into. In the end, I think that it has worked out for the best because I have gotten so much great experience in my current job as well as clarified where my true interests lie. So, in two months I will be a student once more, yippee!!
Ok, so where does my running fit into all of this? Well, after a brief interruption in January I have been working my way back into shape by mostly doing base work and feeding myself a steady diet of miles. Kamran and I will be running Boston in a little over a month and “running” is the key word here as we will not be “racing”. Due to his long break and my lackluster January, we are looking to build a large base sprinkled with some workouts through Boston and then ramp up for CIM (California International Marathon) in the fall with several from our running group. This is my “A” race at this point, and I plan to run a few shorter races in the interim to gain fitness and callous myself to the pace, effort, and atmosphere that only races can fully provide. Right now I am hitting a comfortable 70-75 miles per week, and I think I will hold here for now maybe going to 80 throughout the summer prior to hitting the specific work around September.
Next up will be the Cap 10k in late March. As of now my entry is really not to “race” so much as hit a good 6M tempo in the midst of my 12 mile Sunday run…the day after a 22 miler…damn, that is going to be a fun weekend!
Off the Front 