Running Scared

Happy Halloween runners! It's my favourite holiday of the year.

It's also school's favourite time to hit you with every assignment and responsibility at once, unfortunately. As such I've been a pile of apathy, hairpulling, laptop-techinician-ing and all-around ineffective 23 year old. Hence the lack of posts (and obviously the lack of runs) in the last two days.

Speaking of school, I believe today marks the offical end of the evaluative period of this blog - I wonder if my motivation to run will fall apart without the mutually reinforcing need to post on this blog. I would like to not think so; it's been hopeful period for me insofar as believing in my ability to get in better shape, but I also have an extensive history of only briefly succeeding with this sort of motivation.

But that's an aside. Tonight was a good run. A hard run though. In Toronto again, and so I didn't really know how to plan out my route. I tried to make it not so treacherously hill-infested as last time and failed miserably. I ended up running up and down one 2.5 km hill and then back up and down it a couple blocks down. Toronto hills are expansive. Knowing this though, I only planned out a 5k.

It was nice to run through rich neighbourhoods though and see all the magnificent decorations. Huge displays of cartoon nightmare characters and likewise looking kids everywhere. The only problem was that I way overdressed - a tech jacket shell and a knit hoodie. I kept running and trying to figure out awkard combinations of wearing them that would make me cool as possible. In the end I managed to shove the entire sweater in one of the coat pockets (the pocketspace actually goes all the way to the chest) and sort of only having it zipped at the bottom. I looked like a right idiot, but at least I could stay cool enough not to look even stupider (read: huffing and puffing like a geriatric). That's one problem with Toronto - there's lots of people everywhere when you're running. I can't keep the appearance of being and old pro at this up that often!

The stats: 5.1 kilometers, 29.50 minutes, 2 huge hills.
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Albums bumped while running: The Strokes Is This It?

Stay truely terrifying!

Day of Rest

More like day of stress. Having been at school from essentially the time I woke up to nighttime as it is now, I haven't found the time to get out for a run today. As usual, there's the constant threat of being crushed beneath the stacks of reading that need to get done this week. There's also another wave of marking coming my way, which I'm sure will motivate me to run, as I will want to do anything but read undergrad assignments. I'm also just generally feeling discouraged schoolwise, as the ratio of negative-to-positive feedback has felt like the absolute inverse of my previous education. But at least I'm starting to see this whole running thing as a break from that anxiety, as opposed to a whole other layer of it.

Anyways, I hadn't planned on getting out today in the first place. After yesterday's 5k achievement, I noticed that the toe that was bothering me the other day was really hurting me. Like, almost causing me to limp when I took a stroll to the LCBO. My left knee too felt pretty stiff, and today has felt even tighter, so I figured I may be pushing myself too quick. Back at it tomorrow though, taking it slow to start maybe.

At least I got my usual daily hour or so of walking in though.

Stay true.