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May 29, 2007
playin' hooky, might as well
Between school and work and running, I've had no time or inclination to write for, oh, the past 7 or 8 weeks. Now I am 2 weeks away from graduation, and as a bonus I found an excellent opportunity to play hooky today, so I grabbed it. So in case anyone has wondered what I've been up to for a while...
school: sometimes difficult, sometimes excruciatingly dull, sometimes a lot of fun. Sometimes it's all I can do not to roll my eyes or grind my teeth at some bit of oldwives-tale or pop-psychology or just plain misinformation doled out as Truth and Fact. (Actually, I haven't always been able to refrain from the eyerolling, as my teacher once pointed out to me.) I went to massage school to learn how to work on muscles and why it works and when you ought to work on someone and when you ought not to, and what kinds of ways there are to manipulate muscles. I guess I have learned a fair amount of that, but I have also learned that if you simply wish for something, it will happen (evidence of the Law of Attraction as put forth by The Secret, which we had to watch in its entirety); that type II diabetes is caused by unhealthy living but once you have it, you can't just start living right and expect it to go away; that energy and other ephemeral things can become "stuck" in the body and cause all sorts of mayhem that can be cured by tapping on yourself, breathing deeply, and colonic irrigation, among other things. What if the words "issue" and "tissue" did not rhyme? We would never have to hear "the issues are in the tissues" again, ever. On the other hand, it has been fun. I have begun to learn how to work on people without hurting myself (this is more difficult than you'd think). The people that I work on for free seem to enjoy what I do, so maybe I'm on the road to getting it right. I have managed to stay cooped up 30 hours a week in a small room with the same 10 people for almost 9 months without going nuts or losing my temper. I have discovered what kinds of massage therapy I want to do (as well as the kinds I don't want to do). But the best part is I'm getting OUT in 2 weeks and I will get a big chunk of my life back, hooray!
work: fairly interesting yet low-stress database work, 15-20 hours a week, 100% telecommute, no middle-of-the-night calls or pages, no responsibility for anything that will ever break. Truly a blessing.
running: Twin Cities is less than 19 weeks away! I'm slowly slowly getting the mileage back to medium-high on the way to higher. My goal is to do high mileage + quality (unlike last year, which had no quality). I started running 3-5 doubles a week as soon as I hit 70 mpw, because I really felt I needed some extra sleep in the morning. This has also helped me get acclimated to our lovely 90-degree afternoons. I haven't been 100% consistent about going to track or racing, but I'm still ahead of last year as far as that goes. Some days are good and some not so good. Still, I am convinced I'm in worse shape than a year ago. Hopefully I'll be able to shake that feeling. This year I would really, really like to PR at some distance other than one I've never run before.
other: the all-girl velvet underground tribute band will play its first show ever next Friday at a pride shindig at Tampa Museum of Art. I'm not quite sure how we got tapped for this since we have all plighted our various troths to men, but it should be fun. At any rate, our set is a very appropriate 15 minutes long so we can't do too much damage. After school ends (!) I will make another attempt to revive a band I had a lot of fun with that I was in a couple of years ago. Also after school ends (!!) I will be helping my friend and running partner coach a girls' high school XC team.
deep breath, back under the waves for another week or two...
Posted by joe positive at May 29, 2007 2:37 PM
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Comments
irresistible find...
http://www.playhooky.net/media/Where%20Were%20You.mp3
:-)
Posted by: corrado giambalvo at May 30, 2007 6:30 PM
Welcome back to the -almost- land of no crazy school! I hope that the last two weeks go swiftly and smoothly!
Meghan
Posted by: Megha at June 2, 2007 12:25 AM
Hi jo.
On massage, I've never been a regular. If you don't stop running, you don't get sore, eh? :)
A few years back and for a short stretch, I got regular (once every 2-3 weeks) masotherapy since I had a close friend who practiced. Used it for recovery and maintenance, more than for an acute symptom. I wish it were more affordable.
I did receive a fabulous post race massage after the Flying Pig from a student. I've rarely taken a post-race massage as I've always felt that the muscles were too tender for massage. Not so, this time and the experience was fabulous. Perhaps I am becoming more pain tolerant as the years go by.
Glad you had time to post. Congrats on graduation, coaching, and life thereafter.
Under 18 weeks to October 7th...
~Lloyd (roots)
Posted by: Lloyd Thomas at June 7, 2007 3:16 PM