I've lost count again.

A lot has happened. The stair repeats disappeared (I got bored with them, I guess), and the morning yoga, pushups and situps temporarily disappeared (along with a hostel/B&B, which is a whole other story, but I didn't really want to stay there anyway once I realized that 90% of the people wandering about in the neighbourhood were skeevy looking men), a Muay Thai tournament, a weekend tinkering with hydrocarbons and glassware and one minor accident, my first in a lab, just a 'bump' and splatter, a red-eye flight which was oddly comforting since the flight attendants were trained to treat it like Adult Nap Time (this was after a nap in front of an HD TV turned to the fireplace channel; any other airport terminals have this, I wonder?)

Anyway, this is my easy week. It was appointed as such even before I realized that I was too tired to do much more than walk on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was supposed to be 5 minute intervals, but I decided that since I was going to run just 2 times that week, I might as well ease into six minute intervals. And they were hard. It didn't help that my dog couldn't quite keep up at times, which made things seem faster and harder. I did five repeats and then tried to jog a sixth, but that made my foot hurt.

Today, I walked for a while in the morning with the dog (I really don't want him to get as fat this winter mainly because his vet appointment is in March which is before the ticks emerge but also before the adipose tissue reduces, and I'm sure the vet is tired of hearing about the 70 pound dog who is not 70 pounds during the rest of the year, I swear!).

And then, because it has become routine to walk a bit before his supper, we walked this evening. But the weather was perfect running weather and I was craving something more even though I wasn't wearing suitable clothes or shoes (I was wearing old trail shoes). We walked out and after 1.5 miles or so, we turned back and I started running. I decided to try to run for 8 minutes, just one interval to keep it kind of light. This seemed like a good way to introduce running into another day of the week. I'm envisioning a long walk with a gradually increasing running interval, and maybe turning all my walks into that.

The prospect of doing just one easy interval was added excitement. We ran 1.16 miles in eight minutes. I had to measure it online because I'd figured that 8 minutes would be about one mile, and I knew where the one mile point was, roughly, and that I'd passed it.

I'm surprised the dog kept up.

Tomorrow, we're going back to six minute intervals, hopefully at least five. I've decided that I'll attempt a sixth, but I'll cut it short rather than jog and hurt my foot.

I won't be racing anything this year at least, but hopefully I will be able to run continuously for more than 20 minutes by the end of it.