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- warm up; intervals 400m in [85, 88, 87, 85, 87, 87, 86, 83] w/3:00 jogging rest; cool down
total distance just over 9 km. this workout is better with jogging rest (walking is too easy).

there was a group running at the track that actually looked pretty fit, one guy was really flying. i talked to them afterwards and turns out this is a regular thing, they belong to a local running club and have been working out together on wednesday evenings. got the fast dude's email (he did an 11:38 2-mile and then what must have been a similarly quick mile with a few minutes of rest in between) and will try to hook up with them in the future. would be cool to have a group to train with, especially if someone in the group is fitter than i am.

- run 11.4 km in 59:46 [a few strides in the final km]
tried a new route today, straight down eastern ave. not to be repeated. too many big road crossings and too much fumes.

- stretch

- run 19.15 km in 1:52:52
40s and drizzling, 5:54 average pace, felt incredible. like i could have kept going forever. focused on slowing way down, pretty much succeeded. meant to do a full two hours but took a route on the way back that was more of a shortcut than i expected. not beating myself up about it. DC's so small, i ran almost all the way to the white house. if i took the shortest route it would not be out of the question to run there and back in 2 hours at a relaxed pace. good to know.

- stretch

while i was out, my dad made pumpkin bread. god-tier smell, incredible. gonna go stuff half the loaf in my face now.

- circuit x 4
-- jump rope x 100
-- push up x 15
-- suitcase carry +50 lbs. x ~60 feet/side
-- pull up x 5

- circuit x 2
-- scales front and back x 5/leg
-- hollow body hold x 30s

- stretch

did barefoot on our new deck, which because my parents are cool is made from wood and not some kind of plastic composite like most of the neighbors' decks. barefoot means i can't do lunges and need to be careful with the jumping rope. felt great though.

my dad made four ~25-pound sandbags with handles, that's what i used for the suitcase carries.

- warm up; hill sprints 100m x 6 w/walk down recovery; cool down
total distance just 5.15 km but this was hard. total elevation gain 95m over the course of the run. the hill is 20 degrees which is really steep. did proper sprints and was slowing down a little at the end of each rep. felt good, though. i think i'll do this at least once a week or every other week, alternating with a track day, and add reps over time. lower legs oddly sore, especially shins.

- stretch

okay after sunday's disappointment i need to do a little check-in with myself. first, i had fallen off the wagon consistency-wise in the weeks leading up to that attempt. my best friend was in town, i'd been drinking more frequently, never drinking too much at once but just not taking any days off. and the letdown after finishing my master's and wrapping up this consultancy caught up with me. my mom asked me the other day if i felt a little depressed and the answer is yes. low motivation (for me, anyway; it's not like i've been sitting on the couch nonstop for a month). the days just feel shapeless and it's easy to kind of blob out and lose hours to youtube videos and twitter. feels bad.

on the plus side, i'm healthy and the 20:13 was a good little slap on the ass to get me moving. i've been doing a little reading this morning and i think i need to do a couple of things. first is recommit to a schedule, not just for running but for life in general. i have a LOT of free time at the moment, and also a lot of things that i need to/would like to be doing. so, here's what i'm thinking:

1. build weekly volume and day-to-day consistency back up with renewed commitment to hard-days-hard, easy-days-easy approach.
2. complete "beginner" level of justin guitar course, practicing at least 1.5 hours per day at least six days per week. reach a couple of song mastery goals (norwegian wood, wish you were here, brown eyed girl, the passenger, bad moon rising); start to work more on finger-picking with an eye toward little martha, percy's song, and don't think twice it's alright; finish composing 2 songs.
3. spend at least an hour a day helping out around the house (cooking, cleaning, doing errands, new remodeling projects, etc.).
4. do job outreach every day. i've got an interview on thursday for something i applied for recently, which is positive although i probably won't take it. need to follow up with one guy and start to reach out to my network here about consultancies.

running-wise, this is what i'm thinking (will change signature to match):

sunday: long run, very easy, work on slowing down close to 6:00 pace and up to 2 hours
monday: rest + stretch/strength
tuesday: 60-minute easy run
wednesday: intensive tempo (e.g. 12 x 400m @5k pace -5s w/3 mins rest) OR hill repeats
thursday: 60-minute easy run
friday: 30-40-minute easy run + stretch/strength
saturday: extensive tempo (e.g. 5 x [1 km easy, 1 km @5k pace +30s])

overall i think i need to be less focused on distance and more on time and intensity. i've shied away from hilly courses because they force me to run slower and i don't like how that looks on the clock. vain. now more weekly mileage target, easy day pace needs to back off. i won't hold myself absolutely to the friday runs, that's just if i feel good and want to get out. strength will be push ups and pull ups, core work, and low-intensity lower body stuff like glute bridges and scales. need to try to get my dad involved in those sessions.

finally, every 3-4 weeks i'll change the wednesday run to an easy one, skip thursday and friday, and do a 5k time trial on saturday. need to be pushing myself more at the thing i'm actually trying to improve, learning how to run that distance hard.

- warm up; run 5k in 19:13 PR! 20:13

- stretch

a little blown that i missed it by so little much. came out to the C&O canal figuring that it’d be a nice flat place to do an out-and-back. turned out the section i went to was a downhill-uphill situation (not that steep but 23m of gain, all in the second half) and i just ran out of gas in the final km. back to training and better luck next time. and that'll teach me not to scout a route before i try to PR on it.

EDIT: i blame myself for posting this right after i finished the run and being fried. not at all a PR: in fact, not even sub-20. fml. guess the hill killed me harder than i thought.

hey, welcome to the fourth decade!