First, at work, I am in my element and being successful. Sr. Management and the Board are looking to me to answer questions and they are at a point where they rely on my expertise for strategy. The challenge for me is to continue on team building and maintaining a sense of humility. I am confident that I can keep my ego under control and continue to be a cog in the machine without clogging up the works. This week I am also going to put some real energy behind a couple of additional projects to get them the momentum they need. Over the past several months, I'll admit that I have spent too much time at liberal blogs and on Facebook when I should have been working; so... the motivation is back and when I am in full gear, I'm pretty tough to stop. A busy 6 weeks are ahead of me and I expect to have plenty of accomplishments to show for the effort come May 1.
Secondly, as you know, She came for a visit. That went really well. A lot of things that needed to be said face to face were said face to face and we laid out a road map for putting our old relationship to bed. In addition, I think that after the walking on eggshells that happened for the first 20 hours or so, we opened up to each other and also set a preliminary plan for how we will work on having some sort of relationship in the future. Too soon to fully define what that will be, but I think we are and can be positive for each other. We will cover a lot of those bases over the next few weeks and then on onto the summer. I feel really good about that, too.
Finally, today, 21.21 miles in 220 minutes! I know, the pace was not all that great, but I felt pretty good during and after the run. I had a medium stack of pancakes with honey, not syrup about an hour and a half before the run, so I had a good carb base on board. I also loaded up my camelback water pack with my recovery drink (4:1 carbs to protein) and took sips at mile 13, 15, 17 and 20. Also brought the iPod along with me. At 10:24/mile, it was not near my 3:30 marathon goal pace, but I had really good pace for the first half (probably too much ABBA; Waterloo is a great running song!). The key for me is that I ran a marathon -5 miles and I feel confident that if I had to go the last 5, I could. 4 hours would have been lost, but with 40 days to go, I believe I can get there (sub 4 hours; 3:30 will have to wait for an autumn race)
I guess what I am saying is that I have not been afraid to be open minded and to try something new. A big part of it is managing expectations for myself and others. I was not quick to blurt out answers at work before I had done my homework, I let She know what I was looking for from the visit and all I wanted today was to finish the route running and not collapse at mile 17. In every case, I stayed within myself and I met the goals I set for myself. A great foundation for a wonderful year has been poured and the concrete is about to set. I'll let you know how things go from here.
Next up, several runs in the community over the next several weeks, the Big Race on May 1 and tanning season is upon us, so back to becoming the bronze Adonis that I was last summer (the body is in great shape, just need the color). More tests to come, we'll see how things go. So far, everything is looking good!
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