Changing patterns

Back when I was training for the LA Marathon I recall posting here every couple days or more. Now that I'm not training for anything in particular, I'm now 3-for-3 for posting every 10 days. And I think that's fine, really. It's not because I'm not training or running. Far from it - I'm running great, and have seriously gotten myself into practicing yoga.

Let's see, I go to 2 yoga classes a week, and study privately once a week. That private session occurs on Sundays, which is now the same day as my "long" run. (Long is relative - I'm only sub-20 right now, and that's fine too.) However, I don't feel like it's enough; rather, I feel like I want more. I'm putting energy into incorporating mat time at home every day, somehow. The benefits I'm realizing in the amount I practice now are inspiring me to practice even more.

I'm going through an exciting inner change. My health is good, my head is clearer than it has been in a long time, and my heart is generally buoyant. In the past I'd be paranoid or trepidatious, waiting for the negativity. Now, I'm not concerned about it.

I do have scheduled running "things" coming up. I'm looking forward to them, as markers or perhaps indicators of my overall state of (perhaps physical) being. There's the 10-mile Lakefront run next week, sponsored by the wonderful people at Universal Sole. There's the Chicago Distance Classic (a half marathon) in August, and the Chicago Marathon in October. But, I don't really have a running agenda for those events, except to run them as well as I can. I expect my current "training" to only continue and evolve in a suitable way to allow me to perform well. I do have some desires, like "maintain a certain pace" or "finish within some timeframe," but those are not my ultimate goals. For me, the race *is* the prize. What a pleasantly unstressful way to go about them. For what it's worth, I'm certainly ready for the first two, and probably able to do Chicago right now.

My day job involves a lot of market data. Having been in that industry for a number of years now, data awareness seeps in. I do geek out when I run, wearing a Polar and a Garmin. I like looking at my splits (and they've been steadily improving since LA!) and work output, and I think looking at my courses on maps is interesting. It's all a profound curiosity to me, as I was never athletic in school or whatever. I also enjoy learning about my machine, my body. It fascinates me to see how my performance reacts to how and what I feed it, for instance.

All in all, I feel myself changing in profound ways. Deepening, or perhaps "waking up." I feel like I'm growing, and some patterns in my life may fall away while others continue to deepen and evolve for me. I like the flow.