Counting down...if I can't help it.

My husband is starting his 2nd year-long deployment to Iraq. We're lucky: it could have been 15 months. Hopefully we'll be even luckier and get posted somewhere nice after this. As tempting as it is to indicate/trash the not-nice places we've been in, I'm afraid of jinxing our next posting.

So, I'm in Canada this time around. Working in Asia again would be better in so many ways, but now I have a dog and greencard issues requiring my periodic reappearance in the States, which makes that option somewhat difficult. Staying in the States would have been easier, but our last two postings were not-nice and I had had enough. I found out afterwards that, when one is afflicted by negative thoughts, the heart's electrical field is jacked up for several hours, and this in turn affects other people. This isn't a non sequitur. Geographically, our last post was nice, right on a bay, but I was perpeptually searching for reasons why it was so miserable. Yes, the summer was awful, but there was more going on, including possible chemical/nuclear contamination and, as it turned out, all these poor souls driving around (very few walked or ran or biked) with these whacked-out electrical fields. So, to buffer myself against these bad vibes, I ran a lot.

Which is what I'll be doing for the next year-ish. I have other non-running plans, too.

I still haven't decided any running goals. Do I want to try to qualify for Boston again (my last two attempts were 11 and 10 minutes too slow), or do I want to finally crack 8:00/mile on a 1/2 marathon (my last three attempts were 8:10, 8:10, and 8:14/mile), or do I want to try an ultra, or work towards something shorter....lots of options. My only confirmed race is the Army 1/2 in Sept. I've been on a plateau for the last six months or so, but this is probably because I haven't been putting in as many miles as last year. Plus, my fitness took a hit about a year ago from a ruptured cyst. It's taken a while for things to heal, and it's been a bit demoralizing to have gotten slower, but this is far less of a setback than my first one: a few years of ITBS joy, and many months off running completely. A bit of inner scarring and septis is nothing!

So, goal 1: run more.