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April 18, 2005
Mental Health Days
Growing up, my brother and I were never allowed to miss school unless we were deathly ill. Even when we were sick, we went to school. Our parents have a very hard work ethic. They did not believe in taking a day off just to take the day off. In college, I had friends who would choose to skip all of their classes one or two days a semester, just because. I never did that, I could not justify not going to class because my parents were paying so much for me to get an education. When I started this job, I learned that the policy on taking days off is basically you use them or lose them. We don't get many, which is a problem for those with families, but for individuals like me there are plenty of days. I have also found that in this job where the administration treats you like crap, the students treat you like dirt, you are severely underpaid for your level of education, you can not even count on getting paid, etc...that a mental health day is needed every so often. Today was one of my mental health days. I really did not do anything strenuous today. I caught up on laundry, but did not go anywhere at all.
I did a double today because it did not involve waking up at 4:50 in the morning. I got to sleep in until I woke up, which I will probably pay for the rest of this week. I did an easy 4 miles around 8:45 this morning. I was surprised at how warm it was so early. I had on long sleeves and by the time I reached the turnaround I was feeling pretty toasty.
During the day I worked on laundry and tracked the Boston Marathoners. I can not wait to hear reports on the race. I truly do not remember much of it from the year I did it. It was such an awful experience for me that I never want to relive it. Some people love it, but it is not for me. It feels like there is so much pressure associated with the race.
Tonight's workout was a buttload of 400s with a 200 jog. I was the only person who really did a buttload of the quarters. I did 16 all by myself. My tri buddy did the first three with me, but must have been having a really bad night becuase he left. I was really parched by about halfway through, when I would try to spit I ended up with mucus all over my face. J gave me some watered down Gatorade to at least wet my mouth. He thought that I looked really good and consistent. I felt pretty good, especially since I was running solo. Some of the recoveries started to get too slow when I was trying to spit and to drink. I did all 16 of them in 90-92 seconds. I would have liked to be closer to 88-90, but today was the first time that I have done shorter speed and it was much warmer today than it has been in a long time. I think that the last time I did this workout was over a year and a half ago. When I finished then it was a little bit faster, but I was used to doing this workout and was running with someone. I ended up with 15 miles for the day, which is a pretty good start to the week.
Posted by Blondie at April 18, 2005 08:31 PM