State of the Capella

Ever since Megan referred to this sort of post (negatively) in her blog, I've gotten a kick out of it. The way I see it, it's my blog. If you are bored of it, stop reading. (Or, at least, stop reading this entry, and come back for my various rants.) Anyway, I don't see why these entries are necessarily boring... some of my favorite blogs are nothing more than commentary on what people have cooked recently or what their children are up to, and I neither cook nor have children.

I am training for a half-marathon. Or, rather, I am sort of on the cusp between preparing to train and actually training; the race is in three months. I've never done a half-marathon before, although I did a marathon a couple years ago. I have the (perhaps erroneous) belief that this will be much easier, and also that it will not require me to devote myself to it the way the marathon kind of did. I have a couple of pretty major things I want to do in the next three months that have nothing to do with athletics, and I also don't want my workouts to become entirely focused on the marathon. I want to continue my weekly spin classes, especially now that I've just gotten the appropriate shoes, and I want to continue doing yoga once a week (yes, this is grossly inadequate, but it's hard to find good classes that are also convenient... in general, when you are only spending six hours a week working out instead of twelve it is really hard to do everything adequately), and I don't want to totally fall off the wagon on strength training, and I've been running intervals one day a week lately and I want to keep doing that. So I'm hoping I can train for the half-marathon via one gradually-lengthening long run per week, plus session a week of intervals, one session of spin, one yoga class, a solid lifting session plus a couple of mini-sessions (i.e. two or three machines before or after a cardio workout), and whatever combination of additional cardio workouts (elliptical, or some hill training if I can manage it) and rest seem appropriate on a week-by-week basis. On the one hand, there is a danger of not taking the race seriously enough; on the other hand, my goal is not so much to run a really good half as to get in really good shape, such that running a decent half-marathon is doable even without the sort of massive psychological effort that underlies most beginner marathons. First thing I'll need to do is get new running shoes, and also possibly some cute wicky tops.

Last night, I saw Sleeping Beauty at the ballet. It was quite impressive. I am starting to notice certain themes to these performances. There is a lot of playing around with the nature of reality: dreams and visions, dolls that come to life, people that become dolls or animals. Frequently most or all of the plot of the ballet takes place in the first act, and the second act is a sort of marquee in which a series of characters - fairies are popular, as are various fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters - perform for the benefit of a king and queen (there are many kings and queens, and many marriages of princes and princesses. I really like my seat this season, and I could see keeping it for the spring season. It would be kind of cool to be the kind of person who sits in the same place at the ballet every season, year after year. Kind of like having a life.