I've got a half marathon coming up this next weekend--and I've been very slack in my training the last couple of weeks. I'll probably crash and burn, big time. But, that's OK, I guess. I'd really just intended this Team Nashville Half as a training race anyway. And my real target is still five weeks away: the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis.
Even so, a run of 13.1 miles is nothing to sneeze at. So, I thought that I would ease back into my regular routine with a good short pacing 5K run today. Tomorrow I'll do some hill work. That should get me back into the swing of things.
Part of the reason I've been so slack in training is that my schedule has really been over-the-top madcap of late. As a result, it has been next to impossible to get in any significant running time. And then, even when I have gotten snatches of time--like this morning--my mind is still racing from all the things left undone on my to-do list; the gongs that herald the tyranny of the urgent keep clanging in my ears; and that's not a good thing especially since I'm prone to be distracted by one strange and consuming passion or another even when things are not so hectic.
For instance, this morning before I hit the pavement, I was preparing a lecture on Medieval Troubadours, Trouveres, and Jongleurs and I came across an internet listing of appelations from the region of the Hapsburg Lowlands--all of them commonly used names for Dutch peasant girls prior to the year 1100:
Clodauuiua
Clotrada
Crapahildis
Cunegundis
Now really. Once you see the name Crapahildis it sort of sticks with you, doesn't it? And the thought of a father or mother deciding that the perfect name for their newborn daughter might really be Clodauuiua isn't easily shaken. As you can well imagine, notions like these are hardly conducive to serious running--and therein lies my training dilemma.
