What a perfect day for Intervals; sunny, 52F, no wind, birds chirping, it was bound to be a lovely session, and aside from squirting myself a couple times due to my take-no-prisoners effort, it was!

Starting with yesterday, Nick and I finally got to the mall to try on my belated Valentines Day present – a fancy pair of running sunglasses. Since mid-February, I’ve been itching to order some online, but due to their high pricetag and my large nose, thought it best to try on before purchasing. Good thing I did! I had been counting on a pair of Oakleys, but they looked terrible on me and didn’t fit well at all. So we left the mall and ended up at EMS for a better selection.

My requirements were removable lenses, polarized and clear. The clear is for windy and rainy days since at my age, I don’t need to encourage more facial lines by squinting. So anyway, tried on a bunch and ended up with some Smith Factors. They look and fit fabulously, the lenses are a snap to change, and they’re a hands-down improvement over my Target Ironman pair, so that was Good Thing #1.

Then today, after my morning coffee (I know, dumb to do it after coffee, but that’s what I do), I checked my Heart Rate and it was 49 for the first time in weeks. Good Thing #2

Strange thing #1, I woke up with the weirdest cramp today, the same kind you get when you run too fast, right below my right ribs, but all I’d been doing before I awoke was dreaming. It wasn’t even a running dream, it was a dirty one…still, that shouldn’t cause a cramp. Anyway, I was worried that it would interfere with my workout since it was there until I left, but once I started running, I forgot all about it. Good Thing #3

On my warmup jog, I passed the museum where my resident construction worker cheerleader guy yelled out from yards away, “You GO, Girl!” Can’t help it, but that’s Good Thing #4 (hey, who doesn’t like a personal cheerleader?)

The interval session went very well. It was my first one in a month due to that sick shit, so I was really nervous about where I’d end up.

If you remember from my last interval report, I had decided to walk between intervals instead of jogging, with a reduced recovery period. But after posting a question about it on the Training forum at RW (because there are so many ways to recover…half the distance, 50-100% the time, HR returns to 120, etc.), I changed my tact, since one of the trustable wise men there, Go Long, made this comment:

“If you are training for maximum speed – then rest between Intervals. If you are training for both speed and increased tolerance for speed [endurance] then jog between Intervals.”

Makes sense to me, so I think it’ll do me more good to return to jogging as recovery, and that is what I did on my 6xhalf-miles today.

I programmed my Garmin for 3:30 recoveries, since I expected to do around 3:40 intervals. Aside from my 5th interval at 3:35, all the others were between 3:41 and 3:42, so I was right on target for the workout. So now I have some solid numbers to build upon. Good Thing #5

As for Good Thing #6, I have to thank Lara for that. She knew I was searching out a more Zen-like approach to my running, less goal-oriented (if that’s possible), so she came up with the perfect answer this Saturday. It’s a fun run called, “In The Pursuit of Hoppiness”, where we’ll meet with a group at the Museum and do a 5-mile easy run culminating at Dock Street Brewery for beer and food. There are already 30 people signed up so it should be a blast.

Best yet, we’ve got our men (who are both bicycle freaks) driving there with their bikes and dry clothes for us, so they’ll park at the brewery and ride around till we get there and when we do, we’ll have clean duds awaiting us! How perfect is that?? The other cool thing is I’ve never run through that part of the city, plus it’s on sidewalks, which I’d like to get over my fear of, leading to more exploration of the city in future.

And now I’m looking forward to Good Thing #7, Mexican food tonight with Lara and Jeff at a place I’ve never been to. I love Mexican food but eat it so rarely, this’ll be a treat.

In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for Good Things, I think there are probably a few more hiding out here – like, I read a fun novel yesterday (haven’t done that in forever) and I got another voiceover job for next week and….enough already. It’s all good.

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