Thursday, 01 July 2004

I'm back, after a couple days of meetings up in Libertyville for the day job. It wasn't a bad trip. Filing the expense account was easy--no foreign currency, no company-paid plane ticket.

I didn't get any writing done while I was gone, but I did do a little this evening. I've got an even 2000 words now, on the robot story. For purposes of the writing jam, I should finish it by Saturday and send it out so my fellow jammers can read it and prepare a critique. I may make it. I'm reasonably confident that I can finish it by the end of the weekend, anyway.

I haven't gotten any of their stories yet, so I don't feel too far behind.

I got into some poison ivy a while back, probably during the Lake Mingo trail race. It has been persistent, with a secondary rash forming even before the first one got better, and then another rash after that. It may be a systemic reaction to the original exposure, or maybe the oil got spread from my running clothes onto everything washed with them and then got on my skin from those clothes. Either way, I'm past being ready for my skin to get back to normal. Jackie took the suspect garments and re-washed them twice, once with hot water and extra detergent, and then again as usual. The latest rash is getting better, finally, so if I can avoid re-exposure, I should be better soon.

I did my first round of the speedwork I've been planning today. I ran 2.5 miles, but three times during the run I speeded up so that I was running at a 9-minute pace and then held that pace for several minutes.

In races I've generally tried to run at an even pace, figuring if I ran fast for a while, it would take long enough to recover that my overall pace would be slower. Now I'm not so sure. It's a small sample to draw any conclusions from, but today I found that I could run 3 or 4 minutes at a 9-minute pace, and when I slowed down to recover, my recovery pace was about the same as my usual running pace. So today's 2.5 miles was run about as fast as I've ever run that distance.

I'll keep it up.