A Need for Speed!

Had a good time at Wednesday night's track workout, which was:
6x800m at 5K pace, 2 min. rest in between

I forgot to bring my Garmin with me. Instead, the coach timed my splits, and I got all circuits recorded, except for the fourth. Here they go:

4:02
3:53
3:53
Fifth split: Timed at 4:23, but the coach admitted she flubbed on the stopwatch, and said this split was probably closer to 4:00
4:01 for the last loop.

This is a PR of sorts, because the last time I did 800m repeats, they veered from 3:53 all the way up to 4:24, or something like that. I was fairly consistent this time around - a good sign!!!!

After track practice, I gave one of my friends some pumpkin-pecan bread. A lot of it, actually. :-) She was quite ace at polishing it off, too - it was gone in less than a day. However, I can't take complete credit for this production. My baking skills are rather iffy. Let's just say that without Williams-Sonoma, I wouldn't have pulled off this treat.

And my friend isn't the only one who can snarf down baked goods like there was no tomorrow, as evidenced by the above photo taken of me 2 weeks ago. That pumpkin turtle pie was worth it!

The Fall "Blahs"

I thought that with me living in Florida for at least a year that my usual bout with the autumn doldrums wouldn't happen. That's definitely not been the case. Maybe because October was such an exciting and action-packed month, November now seems a bit of a let-down. The things that usually make me feel all pumped aren't doing the trick. Running is increasingly becoming more difficult, and staying focused at work is a job in itself. I'm usually not a very social person to begin with, either, but I feel even more introspective than usual. There definitely has been a change in the seasons and in my internal clock, even though the temps in Palm Beach County firmly remain in the 80s, and the sun still shines brightly during the day.

Going back to numbers, I realized that I am now 5 weeks away from the Palm Beach Half-Marathon, and that we're 8 weeks away from the new year. *gulp* It's kind of scary to think that 2009 is now, really, on its way out.

I hope I can turn a corner and regain some of my momentum and motivation for HM training. But on the other hand, sometimes I think motivation is also a bit overrated. Motivation helps, but it is, at least for me, sometimes just not enough to get me out there and going. I prefer to sometimes do things on autopilot because all the motivational stuff leads to self-questioning, which then leads to me to... not doing anything. So maybe going with the flow and not feeling too enthused about things is just the way it'll be from here until December. I'll just stick with my training plan as best as I can, and that is that.