Steak and blossoms

It's been quite a week. Lots to do at work, and it's tax time. That moment when your accountant says you owe $nn,nnn.xx, when you expected a small $n,nnn payment owing. Then realize you forgot to tell her you made those installment payments throughout 2015. Oops. It really is just $n,nnn.

I've been feeling like I've been running short of sleep this week, even though I'm getting to bed early, and sleeping reasonably well. Except for the shooting pains in my neck, of course, though those are better after the massage on Wednesday.

The swim didn't happen today. I knew there was lots of stuff at work, and just as well I got there early. Maximo is a swear word, did you know that? Especially where pipelines and dodgy data are concerned.

The run this evening was one of the nicest I've ever done, outside of the ones with my run buddy. I was still feeling a little stiff and sore from the massage, but did a nice warm up walk, listening to my quads complain. I told them we were going to run anyways.

A few steps into the run, and I settled into a 6:30 per K groove, and stayed there. So much for complainypants quads. The first 3 K were  so nice and easy I was thinking I should be running faster. I was barely breathing, my legs were happy, and then I figured why mess with a good thing?  The 2 K coming back are mostly up a gradual hill so I had to work a little harder to maintain pace, but I was never breathing hard. My legs felt light and springy. I could have run further, but figured 5 K  32:30 was good enough, and I'd be running more on the weekend. Better to have a perfect 5K than have it fall apart trying for 6 or 7. Remember, one of the rules for building slowly is to stop before you need to. It was that perfect temperature for running, warm enough to relax and work up a bit of a sweat, but not be dripping and wishing you'd brought water. If every run was like this, everyone would be a runner.

I think it's steak night in the neighbourhood, and between steak, there are lots of trees blossoming.   The mix of scents was wonderful! Here's our own tree.

I started on of those walk paths that connect bits of neighbourhood, and decided to keep turning right. Here's what it looked like. It's kind of interesting going in and out of all the cul de sacs. Some are essentially a used car sales lot, others are oddly shaped basketball courts. There was a huge hop scotch pattern in one of them.

I really liked this one little front garden with a water feature in it.