Mondays are my "rest days," and although I am loving this training block and feeling exceptionally strong as I head into its final weeks (I ran 10 miles on Saturday, no problem-o), I am also very very happy when Mondays roll around and I don't have to run or lift heavy things. (Literally, that is. Figuratively, I am lifting some very heavy shit as we move towards the third anniversary of Isaiah's death.)
I spent the weekend churning out multiple essays in preparation for the launch of my new writing project. Very excited about it. Everything still feels in "draft" mode right now, but I am trying to craft an editorial calendar that gives me time to write and sit with drafts before hitting the "publish" button. The project launches June 11: what would be Isaiah's 30th birthday.
Like I said, very heavy shit.
The Bay Bridge Half Marathon is on May 7, and as I was feeling a bit of a "niggle" in my right hamstring, I made an appointment with my PT. She couldn't find any injury, did some bodywork (I find seeing a PT is a bit like going to a massage therapist who gives you homework), and sent me home with some exercises to do to strengthen my hips. I hadn't seen her since I ran my first half, and she was so full of praise for my progress as a new runner. She also gave me the green light to start thinking about running a marathon — she'd initially said she wanted me to have a couple of years of running experience before I started to train for one. As I saw her on Monday afternoon — hours after the Boston Marathon and Eliud Kipchoge's disappointing finish — we had a lot to talk about race-wise; I think I was also energized by all the Boston talk, and I started to think about what it would look like for me to "BQ." I think that by the time I run a marathon — and I suppose I should say "if" not just "when" — I'd be in the 55+ age group, which means I'd have to aim for a 4 hour 5 minute time. Totally doable, says Dr. Bui. (Gotta love it when people have the confidence in your abilities that you still lack!) Speaking of Boston, I did my speedwork this past week in the same shoes that winner Evan Chebet wore: the Adidas Adios Pro 3. I love them and now have to decide if I'll wear those or the same shoes I wore for my first half. (I'll do this week's speedwork in those: the Saucony Endorphin Elites.) Shoe technology! Why, it's almost as if someone should write a newsletter on these sorts of technologies, LOL. Or a newsletter about donuts — of which I ate two on Friday after leading the weekly donut run.
Apparently this site and Hack Education are part of the corpus that feeds AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which I have to say pisses me off to no end and makes me far less likely to want to post on the Open Web, whatever the fuck that phrase means, or ever meant. While I don't like the idea of hiding my writing and hoarding knowledge, nor am I fond of giant companies expropriating it for their own profit. Hack Education is dormant — you can't even find its articles if you try to Google the topics. But that doesn't mean Google et al won't use the contents to feed their own projects and profits. I'm just happy that I am not tuned in at all to all the ed-tech sychophants who are arguing that this marks an exciting future for teaching machines.