An Update, long overdue

Many thanks to Mandi for gently reminding me I might do well to write a post here.

In the crazy hullaballoo of the end of the school year, with a few trips to the US tossed in, and some other unexpected distractions, I fell out of the habit of blogging, and could not drag myself back in. On occassion I would even visit the blog, stare at it a while, and just log off and wander away feeling that my brain had turned to a chunk of wood or something.

The books and the running did not stop...but something had to go, and that something was this blog.

The up-side of that crazy busy spring thing was that I found that fitting the books and running in from April to June made me much more efficient than I was before.

The down-side is that I began staying up until 2am to read as a regular routine, and though I was able to keep up with the books pretty well the trouble came when I tried to manage life during the day, and then to find a time when I was awake enough to run well.

We will just say that it all felt like a bit too much, and at times I was sorry I had begun this marathon of running and reading in such a public way.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking of how humbling it can be to fail publicly, after inviting everyone in to watch.

At some point in June, time began to be less scarce, and reading was easier to fit in without losing so much sleep.

And I made a few alterations in my running plan. Now I find that I am feeling much better and am improving and feeling almost obsessive about getting those long runs in......it seems that I am just about right on track, and I'm so thankful for that.

On Monday I ran for an hour and forty minutes, which is about twelve miles at my pace. That's OK, and I feel pretty confident that I am where I should be in terms of training. The rest of the week I'm trying to run 5 miles three or four times, and then run another long one late next week.

The really funny part is that I FEEL really skinny and in shape, until I walk past a mirror. It amazes me to see that I look like the same old middle aged mother, when I feel like Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Hey, that reminds me, here's another little up-date for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing me...my formerly brown head of hair is now almost entirely GRAY! It has been an awkward growing out, and not the most flattering look for me as I have been an unkempt looking mix of browny-gray, I can tell you. But I feel like an honest woman now.

I am not promising any more blog posts any time soon, because in about five hours my little family is cramming into the giant red van which is visible from space, and we are driving the 18 hours to Prince Edward Island, and we will not be home for two weeks. YEE HA!!

So I'm all jazzed up to run an amazing 15 miler on PEI, doesn't that sound idylic! Like I can hear the music from Chariots of Fire in the back of my head.

I am taking A Handful of Dust (this is the lucky camping trip I was looking forward to), The Brothers Karamazov, Plum Pie (my Wodehouse for the trip) and a couple of others which are packed in the van already.

And one more word for Mandi....Your copy of the Atomic Bomb book is still tied up at my house, as my husband started reading it just as I was finishing. He promises to finish it on our vacation. Then it is on the way to you! It is a remarkable piece of work, everyone should read it.