Life Update - March 2016

I really want to make an effort to blog more in 2016. Being a corporate lawyer, I rarely write more than emails or pieces of legal agreements, so I feel like blogging is one of the few opportunities I have to exercise my writing muscles. And those muscles are kind of weak from disuse.

I wasn't super motivated to post for a few months because for a while there, running was all about minimizing pain and trying to get to the start line of CIM. Then, it was about recovering from random aches and pains (that ended up not being quite so random) so I was barely running.

I was more active than Betty, but that's not a high bar.
(I was not, however, as glamorous as she is.)

Thankfully I think I'm almost to the other side. I've adjusted my running form to utilize my glutes more and spent two months with minimal running and lots of focus on glute exercises and hamstring physical therapy (more to come on pre- and post-half marathon physical therapy in a post next week -- and I've written it so I promise I'll post it).

I upped my mileage over the past few weeks to see how my body responded, going from less than ten miles a week to more than 15, and slowly adding in some speedwork and hills. So far, I've been good, with just a bit of niggling in my upper right inner thigh (we finally pinpointed that it was inner thigh after thinking it was hamstring for weeks, and after some focused work that's dissipated this past week).

A recent sunrise

And a recent sunset

Another sunset-by-run

And another...

And why not one more sunset?

So this week, I started training for my goal race this spring, a late May half marathon! Unless something comes up injury- or work-wise, I'm going to be running Mountains 2 Beach, and I'm pretty psyched about it. My easy pace seems to be a bit faster with my new running form, so I'm excited to see what I'm capable of.

It's going to be tough because I feel a bit like I'm building my running endurance up from scratch, and my legs get fatigued more easily since I'm utilizing new muscles, but I'm really excited to get back to training. I'm working with Coach Jess again, and can't wait to see what she has in store for me!

Hopefully training will include running some of the gorgeous trails in O'Neill Regional Park, which we explored on a short hike two weeks ago.

And I'm hoping to run the full Black Star Canyon trail at some point since I've only hiked parts of it so far.

Black Star Canyon is so gorgeous.

In non-running news ... um, there's not much going on. Probably the biggest change in my life is I started giving Mason two longer walks every day when I couldn't run much, and I've committed to keeping that up as I get back to running my more typical 15-20 miles a week.

Mason and I meet lots of the neighborhood locals on our walks, including this puppy who demanded all the belly rubs.

I practice Spanish on Duolingo, a great language app, while I walk him. I've been doing it for about a month and a half, and I've seen SO much progress in my Spanish. I took three terms of Spanish in undergrad, but rarely used it after I graduated, and the app is helping me regain the skills I lost after not using the language very often.

Duolingo prepares you for every potential situation, including paternity denials.

Over the past two months, I've also become totally obsessed with politics because the future of our country is a giant, terrifying question mark. I'm constantly listening to podcasts with political analysts and journalists, looking for the latest poll results, and staying up late to watch primary results come in.

I find this Hummer owner confusing. Is he an ironic Bernie Sanders fan, or does he actually support Bernie Sanders -- as a Hummer driver? The population of Hummer driving Bernie Sanders fans has to be, at most, one.

I've been enjoying David Axelrod's podcast, where he interviews politicians, journalists, political strategists/analysts, various Chicago figures -- including Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls -- and other interesting folks. (Since I'm talking politics, I had to use the word "folks", which is every politician's favorite word for "people".)

So yeah, that's the exciting life I'm leading. Dog walking and CNN watching. Shit, did I enter a time warp and age 50 years? Please send space/time continuum help.

Anyway, here's to more frequent blogging in 2016, to fewer (or none?) aches and pains, and to a hopeful half marathon PR this May!

Bye - for now!