Realization

I miss regular blogging, but once you get out of a habit, it's tough to get back into.

I've been in a nice little routine recently. Standard eats:

Fage 0, berries, peanut butter, side of loan documents.

My new favorite delivery food: chicken kabob salad (chicken, red peppers, sweet onions and tomatoes, grilled on a skewer, over a standard salad with romaine, cucumbers, peppers and fresh tomatoes), add feta cheese, with a side of hummus. Old Town Pizza/Sanna's has unexpectedly good hummus...plus, online ordering lets me be supremely antisocial, and not have to actually speak to a human being in order to obtain my hummus and salad.

Salmon burgers, crumbled feta, champagne dill mustard, side of roasted broccoli, pile of olives. I'm almost out of salmon burgers - time for a Costco run.

I've come to a realization: I don't really LIKE running longer distances. I had a lot of fun training for the Philly Half with Stephanie, but I dreaded any long runs that I had to do alone. They dragged, I was miserable, and I spent half the run wondering exactly WHY I was doing this.

I've also long since come to the realization that I don't like running shorter races, either. I hate 5Ks. You go balls to the wall for 25 solid minutes or so, and by the time you get warmed up, it's over, so it's never really fun.

But I do like RUNNING. I love, love, LOVE running shorter intervals. Mile repeats are fun. 800 repeats are fun. Fartlek-style "hmm what do I feel like running this time" workouts are fun. I dig speedwork, not so much tempo runs (though they're more palatable than long, easy distances).

But, like so many people, I got sucked into the idea that I had to race to be a "real" runner, and that I had to race double-digit distances. Um, not so much. I've been much less injured and much, much happier for the past couple of months, where I've been running once or twice a week, 3-4 miles of intervals at a time. I'm happier during the workout, I'm happier outside of the workout. I don't have any real times to speak of, and I can't hang a race bib from those workouts in my office...but...SO?

Not to say I won't ever run another long race. PhillyGuy has mentioned a few times recently that he'd like to run Broad Street one year, and I'd certainly run it with him. But I'm shifting my focus, I think. Running will just be fun and recreational, the way it was when I first started running in college. I'm hemming and hawing about forking over the chunk of cash to join one of the CrossFit gyms in the city - I dig lifting, and I'm starting to get bored with the same P90X routines I've been doing for the past year.

I'm hoping to visit a gym this weekend to see what the story is. For now, it's time to head out to Philly Power Yoga for class with my favorite instructor (Steve - I really dig his teaching style. it's the right mix of normal talk and "yoga talk" that helps me focus on my practice without rolling my eyes).

Happy weekend!