Oh What Fun...

It's been a celebratory couple of weeks.

Twilight During The Holidays in SF -- So Festive.

In the last 14 days, I've attended 7 holiday parties.  Each and every one of them was great and something I'm very pleased I did.  I met new people and people I'd only known virtually.  I had fun and enjoyable conversations.  Good food, wine, and hugs.

About 50% of the parties were professionally related (fun, but also a kind of exhausting and hard work), whereas the other half were purely social (less exhausting, but if you're me and bad at names, still a type of hard work).

So, yikes, am I burnt out.

See, I'm already fairly deep in the throes of  my 10th straight year of practicing law without any significant break.  And even without the 10 year whine, when you take normal end-of-year legal work stress, add large social obligations (often multiple events on multiple consecutive days), and insist that all the regular life stuff keeps chugging along as well?  What you get is a fried BT.

Two weekends ago, on Sunday, it was very stormy.  I'd put in an 18 mile week, half running, half walking, and I really wanted to get fit in one last run since my ankle seemed to be holding up.  So, I went to my gym.

Or, where my gym used to be.

Turns out, my gym closed on November 1st (and I'd been traveling so much this fall that I hadn't been there to see the announcements, assuming there were some).  They also charged me the annual renewal fee on November 23rd, which I found particularly cheeky.  My treadmill in the garage had died about 6 months ago, so that option was out.  And the storm was too windy and rainy to make running outside a reasonable option.

So, I took the hint that life did not want me to run, and E and I went out for delicious pho instead.  Last week was slightly better on the running front.  While Christmas shopping, I bought myself a Garmin Forerunner 620 to replace my very dead 310XT.  I expected to be annoyed by something because every time I've tried one of the smaller Garmins in the past, I can't believe the design choices they've made, but so far, I've been very pleased. 

Saturday, for my own virtual jingle bell hell, I headed out for run/jog/walk intervals totaling 6.04 miles and averaging 13 minutes/mile.  One of the walk breaks was longer than expected because the treadmill outlet called me back -- yahoo, I've got a replacement treadmill scheduled for delivery tomorrow.  This is a good thing since I no longer have a gym, and I'm signed up for a 15K in 3 weeks.  This is possibly the worst-prepared I've ever been for any long(ish) run.  The longest run I've done without a break since July is 6 miles (2 weeks ago, with the local running club).  The good news is, the ankle seems fine, so I *should* be able to work my way up to 9 miles over the next 3 weeks so long as I can find some time in between all of the holiday festivities.