Friday, July 21, 2017

Opossum meets Unicorn

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
*****

Summer is well into full swing, and things are coming into focus lately. I've been doing my yearly running streak, as well as running races and planning the calendar, and taking many trips to the zoo, the beach, the museum, and playing around the house with the little one. It has been an excellent summer so far and it's helped put a lot back into perspective.

I'm 55 days into my summer running streak. This week marks the first full week of my training for NYC, and it has gone pretty well -- heat and humidity aside. I'm running my easier runs at an easier pace, and I'm putting a strong effort into my quality workouts. Hopefully that will yield dividends in the fall. More of my running has been in the daylight hours, and that's been good overall. I need to be adjusted to the heat and humidity, and I feel like I'm making progress on that front. I've also mixed up some of my supplements so that's given me a more fresh approach to this training cycle. Diet-wise I'm still a bit behind the curve, but not doing terribly.

Things are shaping up well for the NYC Marathon, and I've added the Boston Athletic Association Half Marathon as my tune up race, once again. I used it for a tune up prior to running the Marine Corps Marathon and it was the last time I PR'd the distance. It will be good to go back to a familiar course and see how hard an effort I can lay down, to help me figure out what NYC will look like. The BAA symbol is the Unicorn, and in my mind it's a symbol that represents speed. This is, of course, because of the notoriously high qualification standard of the Boston Marathon (which would require me to run close to a 3-hour marathon) and so it's been easier in the past for me to think of my endurance spirit animal as the possum -- hard to kill, and steady moving.

Parenting-wise things are going well. The baby is in full toddler mode now, and walking around, playing, singing songs, and getting more words all the time. It has been so much more fun than I ever imagined, and I'm really enjoying all the zoo trips, and playing with blocks and things at the children's museum. I've put more time into our house now, too, and we have a real dedicated play room in what was our living room. It's a better use of the space, and as it is I think it's good to have a room without a TV.