I'm just here

I have been doing mini-posts from my BlackBerry lately because I just haven't had the time to sit down and do a "real" post--e.g., one with pictures from Hawaii. That will come later. Probably.

Anyway, for the last four days (and several evenings a week before that), I have been engaged in a big house cleaning and organizing and getting rid of shit project. I have to admit, since I got involved with running so much I have tended to let other things...go. Especially last year, with the 27 races and all.

So things had gone from my normal clutter to, well, chaos really. Piles of books. Bags of things from England. Boxes and boxes of shoes. Clothes everywhere.

Then I signed up to change my TV/internet/phone to Verizon FIOS.* Which meant a stranger would be going all over my house. And the computer was just barely accessible behind the books!

The cleanup actually began weeks ago. My mother came to help and we naively thought that a weekend or two would do it. Well, we spent DAYS just relocating the excess stacks of books to bookshelves in the basement. (I admit, I should have purged some books, but didn't. Next time.)

Today is installation day, so after I got back from Hawaii work re-began in earnest. We spent all day Friday and Saturday (but not evenings) and all day Sunday and Monday (plus evenings) until calling "done" at about 11:00 last night.

I have so much stuff to recycle and get rid of out in my shed, I don't know what I'll do with it. My mom hauled away a number of bags of clothes and shoes to donate. I'll admit, as with books, I wasn't as aggressive about getting rid of clothes and stuff as I should have been, it was more about reorganizing for now. I did note that... I have a LOT of jeans. I need to use more than one or two pairs. I have a LOT of shorts, tank tops and swimwear. I need to go to the beach more. I have a LOT of running clothes and workout wear. I need to vary my outfits more. And of course, I need to wear more of my cute clothes and shoes to work. Enough with that pair of grey pants that appear weekly!

But one thing I have continued to do through the cleaning is go running. I fact, I have had three medium-long runs during this episode. Nine miles on Friday (when I planned eight); nine miles on Sunday (when I planned six or seven); and eight miles yesterday (when I definitely was only going to do six or seven before starting up the work). It's like I kept running so I wouldn't have to clean...hmmmm.

And I got some really good times in. On Friday I had one mile (about 3/4 of the way) that was 8:11! (Possibly because in the last few miles I was late for meeting my mom, and fear kicked up my adrenaline a notch!) Yesterday I was really happy with my entire run. My average pace was 9:09** and here are my splits:

1 - 9:57
2 - (.51 at 9:37 pace)
3 - 9:30
4 - 9:10
5 - 8:52
6 - 9:09
7 - 8:47
8 - 8:36
9 - (.51 at 8:45 pace)

This morning was not a running day; it should have been a Y day but I had to be ready for the Verizon guy, who is supposed to arrive... any time now. I'm scheduled 8-12; I actually thought that meant he'd get here earlier but it's almost 9:30 already. Guess I could have been up on the computer after all instead of sitting by the door with my BlackBerry! I still plan to go to the Y later, after the work is done. Hopefully it won't be too warm there. Fabulous sunny days can make for a stuffy gym--with fans but no AC.

The picture above is my little study in its reincarnation. That nice rug? Was completely covered by piles of books. This is better, yes?

Well, Verizon guy is here now. Let the installation begin!

*I made the decision to switch to Verizon even before being screwed by Comcast. But as my channels disappeared over the last few weeks, I was more than happy to dump Comcast, the sooner the better!

**Amended (changed from 9:10 to 9:09) on June 3 when I downloaded my Garmin data and saw the correction. This is key because that means, at a 9:09 pace, I was officially running a "half marathon pace," that is, the pace I would have to average in order to finish a half marathon in two hours. Yea me! :)

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