Feeling Good

Well, this was a really good week!  (Finally!)  In addition to my long Sunday run, I squeezed in three shorter runs and two core workouts.

I woke up at 7:30 AM this morning, got ready, and set out for 16 miles.  My strategy, instead of listening to music for three hours, was to intersperse music with podcasts.  My current podcast of choice: This American Life.  What can I say?  I have a thing for Ira Glass and his nasally voice.

For those of you who've never heard of This American Life, I highly recommend it.  It's an hour's worth of human interest stories, and each week has a different theme.  

You would think that it would be weird or difficult to work out to talk radio--but for me it worked perfectly.  I had to run a slow, steady pace for a long time, and the stories took my mind off of the task at hand, as well as the various aches and pains that cropped up.

I'm a bit tired and out of inspiration at the moment, so I thought I'd close with a quote from a book I'm reading, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by the extremely talented novelist Haruki Murakami, who also happens to be an avid runner:

"For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor.  Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself.  At least that's why I've put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level.  I'm no great runner, by any means.  I'm at an ordinary--or perhaps more like mediocre--level.  But that's not the point.  The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday.  In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be."

Total distance covered: 170 miles

Days until race: 35 (starting to freak out)