Life Lately + The New Agreement

So, fleshing out a bit more of something I mentioned in my recent race report.

First is just the simple fact that work (and work travel) has been taking over my life lately. A couple of my work projects are legitimately high stakes right now (like, people's jobs on the line if I can't make some things work out) so I've been under a lot of pressure. Those things really do have to be my A-#1 priority right now. Unfortunately, the rest of my work hasn't conveniently shrunk to allow me to spend a greater portion of my day on the high stakes stuff, so I've had a lot of very long days. Working a 6-8 hour day in the office and then coming home to work *another* 4-6 hour day in the late afternoon/evening has, sadly, become a thing, as has working on the weekend (sometimes in airports and on planes).

I suspect it's probably not unrelated, but I've also started to feel really burnt out on running. No one is super excited about every run and workout all the time (I don't think??), but usually my bad days are limited to feeling super tired and unmotivated when I get home, forcing myself to put on my shoes and get out the door, and almost always feeling better. Lately it's been so much worse--lots of days when I'll think about the fact that I have a run on my schedule and want to burst into tears. Or I feel tired and sour about going on a run and then it never gets any better. Sometimes getting ready for a track workout and feeling like I'm about to have a panic attack, except it doesn't go away once I've gotten started.

Race Report: San Jose Shamrock Run 10K

Long time, no post!

To be honest I've been a bit down about running lately & didn't even bother running the March 3 5K I was signed up for a couple of weeks back because it was stressing me out so much. I have more to say about that, but the tl;dr of it is that (thanks in part to bt), I WAS able to psyche myself up for a local 10K over St. Patrick's Day weekend and it went relatively well, so for now, let's all just enjoy a relatively positive race report!

I found this race when I was just going through lists of races that could work with my schedule. There were a few different Bay Area options for a St. Patrick's Day race, but this one was the closest & looked to have the best course and was also put on by Represent Running, a reputable Bay Area race company, so it made it to the long list and then the short list of spring options.

It was the first one I was really supposed to RACE-race, but given how spotty my training has been lately, it was hard to get too excited about that. I did not feel like I was in great shape and it's hard to get psyched for an all-out effort when you're pretty sure you're only going to end up with a mediocre result. Sure, I could just go and do it as a workout (or even just an easy run), but I never find that very satisfying, and if I'm just going to do a workout or easy run, let's be real, I'd rather not get up at ass-o-clock in the morning and drive for an hour.