slugs

I'm in a 3 mile/day rut. That's all I want to do, or rather, it's what I have to do. The daily minimum. My dog requires at least 3 miles a day. Without him, I don't think I'd head out as much these days.

Not that this is bad...I ran a fair bit during the spring and summer and and had 4 races that went better than expected. I honestly didn't expect to run a 3:53 marathon and a 1:42 half this year (especially the latter). Consequently, I'm not disappointed that I don't feel like running much for the time being.

However, lately, I've been mildly troubled by something else: elusiveness of easy run effort. There's a weird dynamic at play and it's taken a while for me to figure out what could be happening, and it's still a guess...I can't seem to jog anymore on my own. My core feels stronger and the temps are a lot easier to handle, and these pull me into a faster pace which is still easy aerobically but sort of hard muscularly. I can only hope that my leg muscles will catch up to my core. Meanwhile, my runs are too fast to be easy and too slow to be exciting. Maybe a few more weeks will see a turning point of some sort. I have no idea of how fast I'm going; it might be really slowly after all and my legs are just tired from the cross-training. I have been hitting the bodyrock routines pretty diligently. 3-4X a week!
Plus clamshells (again).

And I am presently typing in pigeon pose. My yin exercises have sadly dwindled to nothing, which could be a factor too. Will see.

There are a couple of health factors too, and it's sort of typical that as I fix one (gluten/malabsorption), another one begs for attention (the same cyst, not gone). The best solution? tweak my diet, probably. Lately I have been craving and consuming arugula/green salad with pepitas and homemade lemon juice dressing. I ate a similar dish during the dinner with Gaz and the guys and it was so fulfilling that I could practically hear every little cell screaming for more, every day. Unfortunately, I have also been craving and consuming perhaps too much popcorn, with perhaps too much butter/grapeseed oil and parmesan, naturally. I mustn't pretend any longer that the weight I've gained is purely muscle. ;)