Adarq.org

I have to say that I generally don't really like Auden, except for his light verse. My preferred poem inspired by Breughel's Icarus is definitely the William Carlos Williams one:

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

- run warm up 2 km

- tempo 3 km @ [4:10, 4:15, 4:10]

- tempo 500m x 2 w/250m walking rest @ [1:58, 1:49]

- run cool down ~3.5 km

- stretch

total distance 10.07 km, total time 51:14

time trial fail due to mental weakness: bailed when discomfort really started to set in. also i went out too slowly. was afraid i'd do that and sure enough did. disappointed but not beating myself up. salvaged some extensive tempo work out of it. learning my body and mind. tomorrow is another day. back to my regularly scheduled programming.

last night got home super late and stressed from work, ended up not running. haven't slept well this week so gave myself last night to try to catch up, and did. also it's absolutely pouring rain this morning with forecast for that to continue until the evening, and i need to work from home this afternoon anyway so plan is to leave the office around noon and run at the gym.

motivation also flagging this week for some reason.

- run 9 km, strides 20s x 5 w/60s walking rest

- stretch

total distance 10.0 km, total time 51:50

there we go. back on the horse. helped that the weather was nice and cool after the torrential rain.

nice work after the previous post!

my 2 cents, I like teh super slow trot rest between strides.

- run 14.53 km, 60s @3:30 x 9 sprinkled throughout
was supposed to do 10 intervals, ran out of space.

- stretch

distance PR, total time 1:12:36

god what a trip. 27 hours door-to-door for what used to be a <2-hour direct flight. bah. two nights of busted sleep.

- run (treadmill) 5.25 km in 28:00
blerg

- stretch

yesterday worked from 8 until midnight, including a dinner thing at the german ambassador's house and then bonding time with colleagues. drank a lot but somehow managed to avoid (1) getting very drunk and (2) having a hangover. so high-five for that. it was worth it, it's important to take opportunities to connect with people outside of work. plus the club was hilarious, tajikistan is a strange country.

today i've been working since 8:30 and have another dinner tonight. so no run until tomorrow morning, when i think i will scrap any thought of doing a "workout" on the treadmill and just do some good old jogging for an hour or something. can't wait to get back to islamabad.

also, a propos of poetry, at the hotel here they always leave a little piece of paper with a bit of persian poetry on it on your pillow after they make up the room. usually it's something by rumi or ferdowsi in standard translation, i.e. professionally translated by an english-language poet. today it was not that. to wit:

Making amends With all of my
Great Friends,
I swear I was possessed
When I turned into such a mess.
Don't want to fall into your trap again,
So sick and tired of playing pretend!

- Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (ca. 13th century)

i'm sure the persian is lovely but...wow.

sunday felt slightly off all day, turns out it was a migraine halo. took some sumatriptan in time to head off the worst of it but still, running was nnnnnot happening. felt crappy again yesterday and just decided to rest.

- run 10.09 km in 50:55
pacing all over the place but averaging 5:03 is okay.

- push ups x 16

- KB upright row x 16

- stretch