Five is the new Three

One last tax rant – at least I’m not going to prison for failure to file. Plus, I’m done a whole 25 hours early.

What was surprising to me, though, was hearing at least two other folks who had waited until the absolute last minute to look at their taxes. Both with masters’ degrees or better. Makes me feel like that much more of an over-achiever

As far as five being the new three. Miles, that is. A couple of months ago, I passed the point where a run wasn’t worth doing if I wasn’t going to get in at least three miles. A three-miler was a nice, comfortable distance. I think I’m at the point where the 5 miler is my favorite run. Long enough to work out the kinks, break out in a good, deep-down sweat, and clear out the windpipe. Not too long, not to short.

I needed to run this afternoon. Work had been challenging but rewarding, finishing taxes loomed, and it was another crazy beautiful (if still slightly chilly) day. Not that I’m complaining. I overslept this morning and had to sprint to the office to get started at a reasonable hour. Worked all day, huffed down some leftover pizza for lunch (Pizza Hut’s Buffalo Chicken pie – next best thing if you can’t find a rock of crack), and was looking forward to working all night. So I threw on shorts and sneaks on my way out of the office, with thoughts of reacquainting myself with Jamestown after the winter.

Parked at the Soccer Field on the Island and headed north along East Shore Road. My goal was to run for about 50 minutes – 25 minutes out, turn around, and huff it back. I wasn’t going to push particularly hard, and the iPod helped – played a bunch of Sarah McLaughlin, kd lang, and Art Blakey to keep the heart rate down, and the pace what I thought was gentle. At 25 minutes, I had just rounded the turn onto North Main Road, and turned around at the corner of N. Main and Park. Decided to kick it a bit, and made it back to the car as the elapsed time hit 48:18, cutting 2 minutes off my out time (I was at 25:20 after waiting for the UPS guy to go by). Not so bad, I figured.

I still haven’t recharged the battery in the forerunner, but probably wouldn’t have used it this afternoon – I really get a kick out of seeing how low I can get each mile split. But I was kind of curious to see what 50 minutes would get me mileage-wise, so I drove the loop up to the north end of the island using old-school distance finding. And I was pleasantly surprised when my odometer ticked off 3 miles from the parking lot to my turn around. I knew I’d done a heavy five miler, but I didn’t realize quite how heavy. Let’s see – nine minute miles would be 54 minutes, 8 minute miles would be 48 minutes – so my “easy” run (and I really was trying to keep my breathing slow and steady) ended up being about an 8:20 pace… Crazy, huh?

And WHAT A DAY! I didn’t ride since it was pretty windy, but this section of Jamestown is great on windy days ’cause it’s all sorts of tree-lined. There must have been a dozen different types of daffodil along the road (My faves are the ones that are light yellow along the outside with a deep yellow or even orange cup in the center), and the forsythia (the yellow shrubbery) was starting to bloom – which means there should be early season caddis on a couple of the trout streams around here… (deep breath – only time to master one passtime and still see the family and stay employed… pshew… I could at least oil my reels and condition my line … deep breath…).

Then I get home, the baby is beaming, and Missy’s made a huge steaming pan of paella, with shrimps (no little octopi, though). Mmmmm, saffron…

I tell you, if I didn’t screw up my taxes, life is extremely good. Now to look into WordPress (the guy apologized, after all) and see if I can dork things up again…