The army marches on its stomach

My tomorrow  (although not necessarily with cookies, but with everything else in the house).

It's been nuts.  Today I had to go to a nearby city, which was a sort of stressful occasion, but ultimately awesome because I got to walk on those things called sidewalks, plus I also felt the thrill of reuniting with my car on the fourth deck of a rather large and complex parking garage...anyway, I dug the city!  I miss the city, any city!#  I should have spent more time walking around while I was there, but I was bombed after just two hours of sleep the night before, plus I still had the 1.5ish hour drive back, albeit minus ~0.25 hrs of securing a parking spot.  BUT, if I lived in that city, I would just walk or bike or bus--the bus system is actually free.  No joke!

Alas, my plots to return to city life are continually thwarted by the demands of my husband's career, but meanwhile I'll hold down the couch and eat lots tomorrow.  I'm signed up for an ultramarathon on Saturday.  Apart from tempo runs 2 times/week in the gym, daily hikes/easy jogs with the dogs, and 40+ hrs/week on my feet, plus resistance exercises*, my training has been nil.  I can't remember my last long run.  So this will be an interesting experiment!

The ultra is the same 100K I did last year.  It's a loop so I could do half, or less, without undue inconvenience to anyone.  And, yes, just doing half, which practically feels like just a third, is a very attractive proposition.  Six-ish hours (hopefully), get done and home with daylight remaining, and then enjoy three full days of recovery.  I'm off until next Wednesday.  This is my misguided attempt at Christmas vacation, actually!

#My present sleep soundscape.
I pulled it out of retirement at about 4:30 am last night.  It's too quiet to sleep here (the jarring intermittent cries of wildlife don't help), but white noise apps wear off after a while, and so I have to combine or rotate them.

*An appeal to public gym owners: please put the yes-no machines facing a wall.  No mirror.  I use these machines because they replace clamshells for ITBS prevention, but at my present gym they're smack in the centre of all of the quasi-nautilus (I forget the brand) equipment, and this is kind of....showy.  It's awkward going in and repeatedly spreading my legs with a bunch of guys around.  I've never had any problems, and I'm pretty cool about gym ogling in general--hey, we're all human, we all glance--but these machines are simply too suggestive, plus they are impeded by my ankle-length skirts and petticoats unless I hike them up, and this simply shows too much ankle.  I jest, and I wear baggy pants, large headphones, and a thousand-yard stare when I use these machines...what is my problem, actually?