I'm going to have to make some changes

I finally realized 2 very important things today, and I mean hugely important. I'm sure you'll agree that I probably deserve the Nobel prize.

1) To get faster, I have to run faster. I've been annoyed with my slow times lately, but continued to slug through the same long slow runs every week. Surprise, surprise running long and slow is not going to make me faster. I have to do what scares me, change my routine. This morning after a miles swim, I headed to the track. My goal: 8 x 400. If I bothered to do "speed work" before I'd run by repeats slightly faster than my slower recovery run. Today I gave my repeats everything I had, which meant that I had to walk in between them. Yep, I walked during a run and the world didn't end. In fact, the average pace for the whole workout was about my average page for a normal run.

2. To get faster I also have to lose some weight and to lose weight I have to stop eating so much. I've been avoiding the scale lately, telling myself I will just keep track of my weight by how my clothes feel. Well I've been spending a lot of time in sweats, so I could convince myself that I hadn't gained weight. And everybody needs to indulge sometimes right? Well sometimes had become everyday and my favorite jeans are tight. Time to crack the whip.


In other parts of my life, I now hate mulch. One of my neighbors came over yesterday to let me know that the condo association does not take care of mulching (aka your garden looks like crap, please fix it now). Mulch, I figured I could handle that. So after the track I went to the store and bought some mulch. The bags looked big, I got 3 bags of lovely cedar mulch. I got home spread those 3 bags, and realized I'd done about 1/4 of my garden.

Back to the store. 5 more bags.

Back home. Spread 2 of the bags. Hear a neighbor come over and clear her throat. "I hate to tell you this dear, but we can only use black mulch. The red is a fire hazard. They'll make you get rid of it."

Seriously?

Is there such thing as unmulching? I was going to have to figure it out.

Back to store. Return 3 bags of cedar mulch. Buy 9 bags of black mulch. Regret that I told the clerk on my first trip that I was strong and didn't need help loading the mulch.

Back home. Scrape up as much cedar mulch as I can and put it into as many containers as I can find to give to my Mom. Lug mulch bags from trunk to garden. Curse the fact the bags are wet and heavy. Dump it and spread it as quickly as possible. Vow to start a mulch hating club. Who's in?