Autumnal Routines

"...I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter's moon
Turn my midnight into mid-noon?
I am all sere and yellow,
And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief... "

Henry David Thoreau, I am the autumnal sun

*****

As the late summer's hurriedness and anxiety give way to early autumns consistent work, I find I have a bit of time to stop and write. I love this time when I'm often busy, have to work my training in around work and family life. It has a good rhythm to it, and is quite in contrast with the enjoyably lazy summer.

We pursued the scans for the baby's skull shape, and there's no need for surgery. That news was quite a bit of relief to my us, although the babe will need a helmet for a few months to help things grow correctly. She's the happiest baby of all time, though, and seems to be moving along at a normal developmental pace, so that's good.

The toddler and I have been reading Jeff Smith's Bone. It's a favourite graphic novel of mine, that I first read in college. I'm reading it on an app, as it allows us to follow one panel at a time, but only a couple of weeks in and we're nearly through with the story. Should finish this weekend. I was somewhat worried about some of the scarier bits, but she seems to be dealing well enough with it, and has a lot of fun telling her mom all about the rat creatures and how Fone Bone escapes them with the help of a dragon.

Training wise I'm a bit sore these past few days, starting to feel some overuse pangs after last week's speedwork (in which I over reached, impressively.) I'm going to cut this week's speed work, but still aim for time on my feet as an active recovery. As it is things actually feel better once I get moving, so I'm not sure there's much of a need to stop. My body is showing me the tell tale signs of over use: elevated heart rate in the morning, soreness. I'll do what I can to start eating better and sleeping more (as much as I can.) I'm adding more ice baths in and foam rolling. I'll get to that second marathon at the end of October, and hopefully I'll be feeling better by then, too.

I've had to order another pair of shoes from wearing out my first pair of the cycle. Not thrilled about that, but otherwise my other new gear is holding up well. And with the muscle soreness I've been running more in my sandals anyway, so this new pair of shoes should easily last me until the marathon. If I'm able to recover on the run like this, it will mean pretty great things for the rest of the fall and winter, but I'm hesitant to let this plan quite out in case I should jinx myself.

Today marks day #132 of my run streak, which is pretty cool. I haven't been keeping a table on this streak in the way I do for the holiday run streak, but I'm averaging just over 50 miles per week according to Strava. I think that my highest weekly mileage is only in the high 50s, anyway, so maybe it means big things are on the horizon for me endurance wise. It would be exciting to find out that this first six years in running had just been the prelude to a really fun life in endurance sport.