I don’t know if the sun has really come out at all today, and that makes me sleepy.  It’s a gloomy day.

I slept in a bit, and then had a workout with Mike.  Today he decided I needed to work on running better—evidently my stride is too short and thusly I have to move my legs faster.  Also I swing my arms too much, and clench my fists.  I need to relax.  He then decided to demonstrate how HE runs, setting the treadmill to 12 (yes, mph) and showing me how “easy” that is for those of us who are tall.  (It was really funny in my head, because while he was doing that there was a very slow moving elderly man walking down the treadmill aisle…and I pictured Mike sliding off the end and crashing into the poor man!  This didn’t happen, but would have if I had tried to go 12 mph on the treadmill.  I could barely do 7, make that 6.5).  Anyway, I guess it’s something I have to work on, but I like my short stride I feel more secure in it (I am quite afraid of falling off the treadmill or stepping off to the side by accident and somehow breaking my ankle) and it doesn’t bother my hip.  Which I forgot to ask him about.  Which stopped bothered me when I started shortening my stride the other month.  Oh well.  I’ll just keep working on it.  He also suggested I should move up .1 mph on my jogging each week.  That is definitely doable…I think… ugh, I am really awful at taking criticism.

Tonight I am playing at an advent service at a Catholic Church in Manchester.  It should be easy enough—based on the music I was given it looks like one of those gigs where you just do what you can, and stuff will work out just fine.  I am hoping tonight’s service will put me in the Christmas mood—I haven’t been playing any Christmas music and as a result am not feeling the spirit yet.  I miss Sleigh Ride

I am thinking Sunday is a good day to get a tree and decorate the house.  I also want to get my Christmas cards and start working on those.  Who wants a card?  (I will have to search for my addresses, as I do each year, though I think I have many of them saved in my gmail under the label “addresses.”)

Tomorrow I plan to try out some longer strides in my running and then have a wedding and another church service, followed by dinner with a friend (not sure where yet, but we’ll come up with something good!).  It should be a fairly relaxing weekend!

I’m glad I took this morning off.  I felt great after my workout, not completely spent.  And I know it was a good workout nonetheless.

Edited to add:  I decided to try a holiday theme for my blog!  It’s not great, but it’s not bad.  I think it’s festive at least!