A good week -- who knew?

My blog has been too whiny and complainy lately, and no one wants to read that. It's Sunday night, and I'm sitting on the couch with my cat, neither one of us with a care in the world. Some exciting things have been happening lately, too, so it's beyond me why I choose to blog about my crappy 45 minute run instead of the other GOOD 10,035 minutes from the past week.

I got a new car. That was more like a week and a half ago, but it feels like I just got it because this weekend was the first time I've had to fill up the tank. It still smells new. It's a Toyota Corolla, which is the same car I traded in when I bought the car I just got rid of. That Corolla was a 1999, and the one I just bought was a 2013, but it feels just like my old car except newer and shinier and with Bluetooth. In fact, I don't even remember what the car I just got rid of feels like anymore, only that it ate tires and didn't get good gas mileage. I've named the car Edith after the Downton Abbey character, because she's plain and boring and while she's nothing to write home about, she is dependable and reliable and has nothing better to do than to get you to where you need to go.

I went on a date. And due to the potential that he is cyber stalking me (don't I wish!) I won't say anything more about that, except that I had fun, and yes I would like to go out with you again.

I am making progress, despite the fact that I tell myself otherwise. Every Monday night I go to an indoor track for a coached track workout. This week was Track Bingo.

Every runner gets a bingo card, which they select based on their projected marathon time. The numbers on the Bingo card represent time in seconds to complete a single lap on the 200 meter track. Run that time, cross out that number, try to get a BINGO. The first time I did Track Bingo a few months ago, I chose the slowest possible card out of the 6 choices. This week, I decided to up my game, and I chose the 2nd to last slowest card. I was pissy all week because I only lasted half of the track workout, which I translated to mean I am half as good as I was a few months ago. But if I can just call Bullshit on myself for a moment -- I didn't do the complete Track Bingo workout a few months ago either. I remember leaving early with my friend who wasn't feeling well. Even though I left even earlier this past week, I also ran slightly faster. Many of the laps were in the same range, so the difference is negligible. But if I'm going to overreact when there are signs that my fitness is declining, then I can occasionally overreact when there are signs that my fitness is improving. I need to start giving myself more credit, so I'll take it wherever I can.

I had a great long run yesterday. I was supposed to run a half marathon Sunday, which was cancelled on Friday due to a predicted snow storm. My coach changed up my schedule and had me run an easy 15 miles on Saturday instead of racing 13.1 miles on Sunday. It wasn't until I realized I needed a graphic for this paragraph that I realized how much better this week's run was compared to last week's run. Here are the splits for the Newton Hills, including Heartbreak Hill. Math doesn't lie, but my brain does.

I rented my condo. I have a rental property that is a major stressor for me. I'm on my fourth set of tenants, and every time a tenant gives notice, I catastrophize and go into a tailspin about how I'll never be able to rent it out again, and how much time and money I'll need to spend on the repairs, etc. I put an ad online at the beginning of the week, did my first showing yesterday, rented it yesterday, and the tenants are moving in Friday. No biggie.

I'm not a couch potato. For years and years, up until I started living a healthier lifestyle 3.5 years ago, I watched a lot of TV. I mean, a LOT of TV. I would come home from work and pretty much start watching TV around 6pm. I would make dinner (i.e. put a frozen pizza in the oven) during commercials, eat in front of the TV, and  basically stay there until I fell asleep on the couch, or I turned off the TV at 11pm and went to bed. That's about 5 hours of television per night. I'm sure I watched just as much, if not more, on the weekends. To be conservative, let's just say I watched 30 hours of TV per week. The training program that my coach uses gives me weekly totals of the time I spend training. It's only 7 hours per week! Don't get me wrong, it's a hard 7 hours per week, but that's just a quarter of the time I used to spend sitting doing nothing. I write this as a reminder for myself that instead of beating myself up because I didn't finish a track workout, or I missed Friday's swim altogether, I need to remember to be grateful for what I am doing. That couch and television are just one cranky decision away from becoming my life again, and that is not what I want. I want everything exactly as it is right now, and that's what I've got.