Nice Quote

Adam recently shared this with me, not sure of source: 

The great advantage of our sport over all others is that we don't need a ball or a team or a field, or even, according to some, shoes. We just need to stand someplace, imagine ourselves in the center of a circle, pick one out of the 360 degrees available to us, and head thataway.

As I look at my MTCM packing pile that is slowly starting to grow (including things like family Xmas gifts I'm going to give to my folks to drive home so we don't have to fly home with as much crap), and I look at the piles of gear my weekday running buds photographed in preparing for their first tri adventures, and I think about all these other fun fitness things that require equipment or instructors or whatever, I'm reminded that I like the simplicity of running.  For me to run, I do need socks, shoes, and a bra, plus shorts (some form of bottom covering is required by law in Texas).  Beyond that, I like to have a watch and a shirt, but that's really it. 

My husband likes all that disaster-preparedness stuff and has convinced me that I should always have an old pair of running shoes in the trunk of my car.  If the worst happens and many highways are destroyed by natural or human forces and I happen to be at work when the $hit goes down, do I want to be trying to get to safety in my stylish but oh-so-impractical work shoes?  But I like knowing that if I had to leave my car somewhere, I have the self-propelled means to travel out into the suburbs at a moderate running pace.  Going that distance wouldn't kill me.  And I'm willing to bet I could get there (let's say Richardson, a northern suburb about 10 miles away) faster on foot than 90%+ of the people working in downtown Dallas on any given day.  Being able to run and have decent endurance makes me feel more self-sufficient, even though that skill is unlikely to ever matter in my daily life. 

As an aside, my work shoes during taper time are neither stylish nor impractical.  It wouldn't be fun to go 10 miles in these, but it's not like I'm wearing heels or something.  Definitely looking forward to being able to bust out some nice fall boots with heels after this race is over.  Right now I'm too paranoid about tripping. 

All this posting to avoid saying that I ran a bit too much this morning.  Schedule called for 3, and we had 1.5 at camp, including 1 mile that was fairly fast.  But Joy and I had a lot to talk about today, so I ran with her after camp anyway.  But it's not like I went completely overboard or anything, and we kept the miles easy.  Tomorrow we have yassos on the calendar, but only 5 of them.  One of my least favorite track distances ever.  I consistently underperform at that distance, but in terms of marathon pacing prediction, I can usually hammer out the 10 needed for it to be accurate (supposedly).  Last day at the track...