In our connections (new membership) class at church, by pure happenstance, I ended up sitting next to a math professor from Taylor. The thing that stuck with me though is that his wife was in disbelief that as a single guy, I'd make the effort to get up early enough on a Sunday morning to make the 20 minute drive to church so I can be on time for the 8:30 a.m. service. She told me to sleep in while I can, no doubt the words of a mom desperate for sleep because she has four children ranging in age from five years to two months old. Thanks for the advice, but 1) Yay! Someone thinks I'm not going to die alone! and 2) no thanks. The biggest accomplishments I have for this year all came from times I got up early. The vast majority of my training for this spring's 50k came when I was up at six so I could be out running by seven. The average start to my day for the four days I spent hiking outside Gatlinburg was probably about six as well. D.C. and the cabin don't really fit the narrative because I probably spent those being lazy and sleeping in until about 7:30. I'd love to claim that this is a "I'll sleep when I'm dead" thing, but I take way too many naps for that to be true. In fact, thinking about this caused me to resolve to become more active - less naps and afternoon reruns and more enjoyable running and cooking experiments and just more doing in general.
My first chance to implement this mindset came yesterday. Mondays call for an easy run and yesterdays was supposed to be five miles. Ever since about halfway through the 50k training, my running attitude hasn't been great. I'd get up and think "Ugh, how many miles today?". Why? Why would I do this to myself? If I'm not enjoying running, what's the point? That's when I decided I have to be more active in enjoying running. I got home yesterday and briefly considered not going because of the heat. My car said the temperature was 95 and sure, it may have been out in the sun, but that's where I would've been running so I'm counting it. After that half-second of doubt, I got my attitude right, changed clothes, put on my shoes and started running. I got a few looks from people who thought I was crazy, but nobody said anything. Did I succeed in enjoying my run? Of course not. Running in 95 degree heat is crazy and probably stupid and dehydration sucks unless you like having your face taste like salt. I did, however, not let myself dread the run at any time and I didn't get discouraged when I went slow. I'll take that as a success and carry it over into today's 1/3 mile repeats in the similar heat. To that, I give a mostly not sarcastic Huzzah! UPDATE: I'm not running today. Repeats in 99 degree heat is absurd. I'm stupid, but not suicidal.
Finally, I think everyone in central Indiana is married. There were no single people at AU's new faculty orientation. There were no single people at the church connections class. I'm starting to think there are about six attractive single women over the age of 25 in Indianapolis and I'm scared I've met them all.
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