Adarq.org

gonna follow the DC road runners track workouts for the next couple of weeks. the one i did last weekend is from them, today will be the next one in line. their coach wrote that he's deliberately designed them to be short and with extra recovery because of the heat and humidity, which seems smart. the workout last week felt pretty easy, but i think that's okay for now. i'm setting pace targets relative to an 18:59 5k, adjusted for T+DI.

- warm up x 1 km; intervals 6 x 500m @5k pace (1:54-1:58), 300m jogging rest; cool down x 1 km
T+DI 158, very hot and sunny. this was a little bit tougher than last week but very doable.

- stretch

total distance this week 57.78 km, 35.9 miles. that's around PR territory.

non-training-related update: kind of by accident, it seems like i'm starting to work as an independent consultant. a gig fell into my lap through one of my professors at school, who recommended me the head of this disability-rights organization for a bit of research they want done. proper research is a bit of a stretch for me but i've started working on it and it is FUN so far. gonna work on my interviewing and analytical skills and hopefully make something interesting and useful. that'll take me through mid-september. and i've got an interview sunday night with a small UN agency to develop their fundraising strategy (they're in tokyo so it's their monday morning). who knows whether i'll get it but it's nice to get a call-back. and that work is much more in my wheelhouse, at the very least i will know how to sound smart during the interview.

pretty surprised by both: the first i didn't go looking for at all and the second (UN) was totally cold. gives me some hope that i'll be able to make a living while i look for a job and figure out what the hell i'm gonna do with my life.

it also addresses one of the big things that was driving my ex and me apart: her desire to be ultra-mobile for a while and my worry about making ends meet once school is over. we'd have other shit to work out if we decided to get back together but if i can really string a meaningful amount of consultancies together then why not hit the road for a little while?

Feeling burnt out

ice cream, TV, sleep.

yikes man glad to hear you walked away from your crash relatively unscathed! i'm scared of biking tbh, have too many friends who've had bad accidents around DC. one took a year and two surgeries to recover after getting doored.

yo congrats on the many life changes! the improvement in job condition is not to be underrated, having a job you hate just sucks the life out of you. watched my dad go through that last year, then come out of it this year with a new gig that he really likes. night and day.

fwiw, one thing i like about running is how not time-consuming it is. there's no commute to the gym and only rarely to the track, no real warm-up unless i'm doing speed work (and those workouts are shorter, so it's a wash time-wise). just tie shoes, put on sunscreen and mask, and head out the door. obviously, my runs are longer now than they used to be, but you can gain a lot of fitness with like 4.5-5 hours per week. even now my total running time per week is only 5.5 hours, plus a cumulative hour or so for stretching.

i'm not particularly talented at distance running, either: my history was the same as yours (a casual season of xc in high school during which i ran close to 20 mins). but i'm pretty sure i'll be able to run 18:xx this year, if i stay healthy. that's not very fast, but it's good enough to be top-10 and usually top-3 or 5 in basically any local 5k, which is fun.

that said, i've lost 10 pounds, my strength is basically where it was when i first started lifting weights 11 years ago, and i'm certainly not as explosive as i was in 2016. running is obviously not a great recipe for improving vert, strength, or muscle.

it is fun as hell, though.

- run 19.6 km in 1:42:16
accidental distance PR, first time over 12 miles. ran a mile longer than intended because my mom (who biked along with me) and i got separated just before the halfway/turnaround point and i looped around to look for her. waited for ten minutes at the fork where we must have gotten split up and then came back. we just missed each other and ended up arriving home within ten minutes of each other. so also a lot faster cumulatively than last week (5:13 average pace), thanks in no small part to my being worried/irritated that i'd lost my mom, lol.

- stretch

tired.

good question: towards the hand. have you done anything to make it better or just pushed through it? and has it gotten worse over time?

two things to note: close grip chin ups bother my right bicep a little, as they have for many years. i figure there's something screwy in my shoulder. also, i'm starting to get a little soreness on the inside of my left elbow. fairly sure it's pull up related, as well. neither that bothersome but i just need to be conscious of them and prob to work on shoulder and elbow mobility before i do the workouts. annoying because i've been loving how efficient they are, but better that than get hurt and have to stop altogether.