dancing and distance running

do i want to start this again?

jesse and i have been dancing considerably less than i was in knoxville. there, i was doing 2-3 nights a week for a fairly solid 2-3 hours each time. here, it's usually one night of dancing (thursdays at the attucks in norfolk... or in williamsburg once every six weeks) where we have to leave early if jesse's on days, plus maybe the william and mary club on wednesdays, and maybe a little bit of dancing at one of the live shows at one of the parks in the area across the rest of the week.

on the one hand, less dancing = less practice = not so good for the skill level. and less exercise from dancing = not so good for my body fat level or cardiac health. we're sort of hoping we can get a venue going a little closer to home one night a week to up that, and sort of hoping we can find some like-minded dancers who want to jam out to trad jazz/classic swing frequently so we can offer something a little different than what we're getting at the already established venues, but that's all fairly theoretical at this point.

on the upside, though, not dancing as much opens up the opportunity to partake in other activities. for the moment, cheap activities are highly preferable. running = ultra-cheap. i've been doing 3ish miles every few days anyway, but i'm thinking that maybe i should find a race to work towards. jesse took me along to the langley air force base's gym (which is quite swanky) today so we could work out together without my slow and steady approach impeding him, and i saw a poster for the air force marathon. unfortunately, el internet tells me that it's in dayton, ohio, but there's a half-marathon in norfolk in mid-october. too soon to finish fast, but i think i could at least finish.

maybe? guess i'll start stepping it up a little and see what my knees will let me get away with at this level of dance activity -- previously, i could never seem to recover from weekly long runs of 8 miles or more without skipping more dancing than i wanted to. if anybody has any tips on training for distance running while continuing to participate in other relatively high-impact activities, i'll take 'em!