back in the saddle

again.

i'm officially back at it. training, that is. i've been back into it for a couple weeks, minus that coughing-til-i-die thing that lasted a couple weeks. my running is oddly fast, faster than i've ever run consistently. have some interesting training weeks coming up. plus dave has been on most of my workouts with me. that's been different. today i had a rough day at work, yet on the way home i realized that i'd vent about it while we were out on our run for the evening's workout. that's VERY different for me. i never ran with him previously because i felt i would hold him back. but now he's in that wonderful, pre-ironman training stage again, and he's out just to be out with me. and can i just tell you how wonderful it feels to tell a story while out on a run?! i've never had the lung capacity to carry a convo while running. and granted, on the uphills i'm a little less than comfortable, but this is just amazing. all of my problems, as they come spilling out of me, they seem so tiny. i truly look forward to my runs. there's about a 0.75 mile sloping downhill near our house, and it makes me just absolutely love everything about running. the entire way down shows a beautiful view of mt baldy, and a breath-taking view of the blanket of the valley's lights. i've been running without my knee brace, consistently. smart? i don't know. i don't have any pain in that knee. and i saw my last xrays, i'm not quite bone-on-bone yet. i've also been running in shoes that are minimalist, a pair of bright red kswiss shoes. which have forced me to run in a halfway decent form. i don't have great form. i've never had enough speed to even constitute any form at all. so i thought i'd be ok trying out the whole minimalist point of view as far as shoes go. it's been going well, but in the last 3 days or so, i've developed a really nice case of shin splints in my left leg. i know them well, i had them at the beginning of every track season when i was younger. they suck. they hurt really badly. i'm trying to drop the 25 i've put on in the last year. my body is screaming at me that i'm fat, and there's no way i'm going anywhere fast.

work has been crazy. this week i went to my first committee meeting, which took me by plane to oakland. flight paid for, and i got paid for the day. it's always impressive to be surrounded by people who've been in your world for years, and still have such passion for it. i was talking with my dad, it's so hard to come home from such a high, only to go back to work the next day, on your own. it's virtually impossible to not just go right back into your same 'ole rut. i'm trying to not let that happen. this committee is the founding committee of my entire program. i've also been asked to be a part of another committee tasked with standardizing my program across the entire southern cal (kaiser) region. that'll be interesting...but, committees are very good for resume building.

school is a time suck. as was expected. but it's all about hoop-jumping. the more hoops i make it through, the further along i get.

that's about all with me...the pup is back to normal, going to school with the big boys again. thank the lord.

hasta.