Decisions, decisions...

I had a decision to make this morning: start over at the beginning of week 6 in the C25K or give day 3 another attempt. I chose the latter, and finished, but it was slow and I struggled a little. I'm wondering whether I'm really ready to do week 7 on Wednesday. (Today I ran for 2.25 miles without stopping. Week 7 has me running 2.5 miles without stopping.)

I'm really motivated to finish the program before school starts on August 23 but I don't want to push myself too hard. I made the decision that, once school starts, I'll take a month off from "training". Meaning that I'll run and cycle enough to maintain current levels, but I won't push for improvement. I'm already questioning that decision, but I think I'll be under enough mental and physical stress during the first month that I don't want to ask my body to accept any increased load. This is a bit of a pre-emptive strike against burn-out while returning to work. I'm not sure what I'll do about weight training and yoga, though. It seems difficult to not progress in those.

So, decisions, decisions. Perhaps I'll "unofficially" attempt the 2.5 miles and, if I need to stop at 2.25 miles, I'll just pretend I meant to do the shorter run all along. Yeah, that'll work, and I may just surprise myself.

Yoga class was very... productive today. I was beginning to wonder. The instructor had "adjusted" my poses so little during the last few classes that I developed a few theories.

a) I am amazingly close to perfect after just one tough class
b) I am so amazingly out of whack that she doesn't know what to do with me
c) I am so amazingly sweaty when yoga-ing that she can't stand to adjust me (well, it gets hot!)
d) I am surrounded by more novicy-novices that need her attention more than me so I'm able to blend in

Ok, well it's clear that the answer is mostly d, with a little bit of a and b mixed in every once in a while. I'll pretend it's not c!

Anyway, today took care of it, and she dashed any and all illusions of grandeur that I may have had. Of course, I'm very happy to receive criticism... it's just that sometimes the adjustments seem so impossible to follow.

"Yeah, I can bend that way - if you don't mind staying there and continuing to pull my elbows. Because the instant you let go, they're just going to spring back. In fact, when you do let go, you might want to get out of the way quickly. Just in case."

Today's Run: 2.25 miles in 28:45. Pace: 12:48. Flat course. (Now that I'm running solidly without walking breaks, I'm no longer going to include the warm-up and cool-down times and distances in the totals.)

Oh, and my bike shop seems to have found the problem with my bike cable! It's not my fault! It's not their fault, either, though they apologized repeatedly. In any case, it seems to be fixed... now I only have to hope that what they found to be the problem really was the problem!