Running Through Summer

Now summer's here and the weather is really beginning to get hot. I added another run to my mid-week repetoire so that I'm running about 3 miles x 3 days a week. However, I can seldom have a "perfect week." Sometimes life just gets in the way of running and I wind up skipping a workout. If I do workout, then one run is usually very easy, with many walk breaks. I'm also back to increasing my long runs on the weekend. Last week I did 7 miles, and this week I did 8 miles--a record for me!!!!! My running schedule happened to coincide with my church's Run/Walk for Tanzania, which gave me some friendly people to run with at the park where I typically run. It was a real treat to run with other people. I went 4 laps around the lake. There are two duck families and it's been fun to watch the baby ducks grow up week by week as I jog around the park. It takes me about 1.5 hours to run 7-8 miles, and my husband got me a fuel belt, which I'm sure will come in handy.

I've been wanting to get back to my CAE studying and really put some serious time into this effort. But life keeps happeing. There's a board committee project that was more time-consuming than anticipated. The need to prep for an IEP meeting. My advocate quitting. Getting behind at work. A difficult author. Traveling for the holidays. Kids sports and tutor. It seem like I have less and less time for everything. I used to take classes at my local community college in preparation for a master's degree. Now, I can't figure out how I did it all. Maybe it was because I slept less. I remember during one summer class, I was more tired and fell asleep at every boring meeting and at church on Sunday. Maybe it was sheer determination. Where did the time and motivation go? The only fortuitious thing was that I planned out a study guide that called for spending 3 weeks on each area of focus. After all the distraction, I'm still on schedule. I haven't taken notes on all the chapters, as I wanted, but perhaps I can read everything once over before fall. Maybe I can put the piece into place again as I run through summer and the warm weeks fly by.