Every day is like Sunday

I've spent the day reading Haruki Murakami's What I talk about when I talk about running.  It's quite an interesting read considering that I didn't realize that Murakami is both novelist and runner--you can see how true this is from the photo below.

I was slated to run a 10k trail race today, but opted out when I realized that what I really need today is a slow and easy run, and not another substandard performance.  So yes, I'm not pushing myself beyond what's actually rational and reasonable any more. In fact, I'm still recovering about 1.5 hours of body-weight exercises on Saturday (100 crunches, 54 push-ups, 50 lunges, unknown # of squats and so forth).  Instead of running the race, I walked a few blocks with Jasmine and the kids... one of the kids insisted on wearing her Halloween costume.  So yeah, that happened.  They really couldn't be cuter if they tried.

And I still haven't run yet today... Hmmm.

Update: Is it me or are ice baths a form of torture?  I'm writing to you *from* an ice bath having just run 6 kilometers.  Today the pace was faster than last time--a fact I attribute to actually fueling up.  I'm still not really happy with my stride.  Though I had no trouble with my IT band today--had I tried running faster I probably would have aggravated it.  All in all, I ran 9:35/mile splits, and felt perfectly fine.  So I'm improving.  With a bit more time, I'll regain some of the speed I lost.