Good mornin' everyone, just got in from a nice long run. I think it may just have been my longest run of the year, I'm not sure. I'm pretty confident that it is my longest run since last spring when I ran in the Chestertown Tea Party Distance Classic 10-Miler in about 1:14:57 in Kent County, Maryland. Today's run was I think a little over 11 miles, mainly through shaded bike paths and all the way up to the Long Reach Village Center in Columbia, Maryland and then pretty much retracing my steps back to the house and added on a little bit from there. I went through the first half mile in about 3:28, the first mile in the mid-6:50's, and I thought from there I would slow down into an easier pace, but I felt pretty good and surprised myself picking up the pace slightly and gettin' through the aboug five miles in 33:44. After that I ran up from teh bike paths onto some wooden stairs behind some neighborhoods up into the Long reach Village Center. From there I decided to ease off, as I did not want this to be a hard run, but rather more of an easy-to-moderate paced long run to up my mileage this week to something just over thirty miles and get me ready for some longer races that I may do in the near future hopefully. I do want to start keepin' more tabs on my mileage-per-week, 'cause I think I don't do as much since I've been running a lot of races lately, and it's pretty effective for training and I suspect that I probably have not been running too much over twenty miles a week on some weeks (back in college when I was in strong running shape, I was usually puttin' in anywhere from 40-60 miles a week and one week last fall when I was training for Columbia's Metric Marathon, I put in about 57 miles).
Anyway, with about several miles to go, my right leg (which tends to be the one more susceptible to injury it seems) started to cramp up and I eased off 'cause I definitely did not want to mess myself up on this. I managed to finish the run in about 1:18:52, which was pretty nice for a distance probably a little over 11 miles and I'm sure I was going quite a bit faster than I was for a majority of the Chestertown Tea Party 10-Miler (even though I thought it was a little less humid on this run). In addition, this run was a little bit more hilly. I'm going to put some ice on my legs pretty soon after I get some food in me. Also, this evening I'll probably have more exercise from playing basketball with my friends (that'll be interesting, because I'm probably going to be mighty tired from this run and I haven't played basketball in a good while). Tomorrow, I hope to have a nice easy-to-moderate four miles or so, and that should get me in at about 33-to-34 miles this week, we'll see.
Before I go though, I have some good news I have been holding back from you. In fact I think it's great! About a week-and-a-half ago I was hired by the Homewood Center, a specialized school in Howard County, Maryland for students with special needs and behavioral issues (hence the Homewood Center logo up above this entry). I will be serving as a paraeducator special education instructional assistant. I am really excited about it, it seems like a solid match because I will mainly be working with high school age students, and when I was substitute teaching, I enjoyed working with that age group a little bit more. Also, I will be helping out in a lot of English classes, and that's a strong academic point for me (not to mention that's what I majored in at Salisbury University). I start on this coming Tuesday morning and my last day at the Safeway grocery store will be on Monday, the day before. I've worked for Safeway mostly on a part-time basis for about six years off-and-on during breaks from school during high school and college. This particular store in the Harper's Choice shopping center I've been at for about fourteen months straight. I will miss the people I work with but I feel it's time to move on from something I don't want to do as an occupation into something I feel like I care a little bit more about. Plus, that Safeway is not too far from me, I'll be sure to visit. As far as substitute teaching goes, I probably won't be doing that for a while allthough I was doing that through the Howard County Public School System, which just hired me full-time into this position, so I'll pretty much be workin' for the same organization except pretty much in one place. In addition, it is near Wilde Lake High School, another Howard County Public School where I was a long-term substitute student assistant in the special education/academic life skills department last spring, so I'm sure I'll be seeing/visiting them. I'll miss the students I wasworking with last spring, and I definitely have some fun memories of that place, plus it was during that time that I was making a lot of progress on this state-wide running endeavor, running races in about nine counties I had not run in yet and in Baltimore City while also working at Safeway too. Such a blessing to have been able to have opportunities to make progress like that and have the energy to do so between two consistent jobs...
I am definitely really pleased that I have landed what seems like a good match for me right now. It will have its challenging moments, but I know I am there for a reason and I am faithful that the Good Lord will help to make my time there beneficial for others and myself! And it looks like I will only be working one job when that starts, so it will not be like last winter and spring, where I would sometimes substitute teach then work at Safeway and then be a little hard pressed to fit in adequate eating, sleeping, training plus time for family, friends, and to write on my various projects.
Anyway, I did not come right out and say that on here when I first heard the news (well to some of my closer friends and buddies among you readers, I spilled the beans to you), but I was not ready to announce it to the general public because I was not sure yet if something would go wrong, but now that I am through my phyical and orientation and it seems like all the necessary paper work and credentials are in order, I should be legit to start on Tuesday!!!
Thank you all for reading this and suporting me on my running and occupational endeavors, I hope you all have a good weekend!
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