It's difficult to have a productive day when you don't get up till 2. Yes, I went to sleep at 3am, but that's still 11 hours of sleep. Maybe I'm sick. Or just unmotivated.

I was somewhat productive yesterday. Well, not productive, but busy. I read 2 books-- Sue Grafton's "O" is for Outlaw and Stuart Woods' Dirty Work, both mindless, but still entertaining mystery novels. I still haven't figured out if I'd already read "O" is for Outlaw. I feel like I must have; it was written in '99, and I've read everything in the series up to that point. I often have moments early in a book when I realize it's a book I've read before. That's what happens when you read hundreds of books a year (and when the books you read all follow roughly the same pattern anyway). The problem with having read two books yesterday is that the library is closed today and tomorrow. I'm still in my probationary period with the library, so I'm only allowed 5 books at a time. Last time I was in the library, I decided that I need to read a slightly better quality of literature, so the other books I checked out aren't the same easy-to-read trash. But now I'm tired and just want an easy read, but I can't go to the library to trade in my selections. Alas, guess I'll have to watch TV instead!

I only ran 3 miles yesterday, in part because I hadn't eaten a whole lot and didn't want to pass out on the treadmill and in part because I am supposed to go for a long run (6-7 miles) tomorrow and didn't want to injure myself doing that too many days in a row. Since I wasn't running very far, I tried to increase my pace a bit. For a while I was running at an 8:45 mile pace, and my average over the 3 miles was 8:55. That might not sound terrifically fast, but I'm a distance runner. I don't have great speed (and I cannot sprint), but I can keep up that kind of pace for several miles. When I was running high school track, my best-ever half-mile time was 3:05, and my best-ever mile was 7:00, so I'm not ever going to be able to do a 4:00 mile or anything. Ideally, by April 24, I'd like to be able to do 8 minute miles for 13.1 miles (to get a special start place at the Chicago Marathon), and by October 10, I'd like to be able to do 8:23 miles for 26.2 miles (that would qualify me for the Boston Marathon). These are just my goals. While not technically impossible, given my recent training, they are somewhat unlikely. Very few people go out to run their first marathon and qualify for Boston and those that do have been running much longer than I have!

Anyway, the point of my story... Usually when I'm on the treadmill the other people running are going much slower than I am (sometimes walking) or they go quicker (around 8 minutes miles) but don't last very long. Being the highly competitive person that I am, it's always good to know I have more speed and/or endurance that the other people running. Yesterday, the girl next to me was running 8:20 miles and kept going longer than I did. Of course, she did stop occasionally to catch her breath, and her form was awful, but still, she was beating me. That just gives me motivation to train harder! 7pm was kind of a miserable time to run on Valentine's Day though because the treadmills face the entrance to the building, so I saw people showing up with flowers, couples leaving on dates, etc. Alas. I thoroughly enjoyed my night in, so I guess I have nothing to complain about!