A bit sore coming off yeseterday's 3.5 or so miles since I hadn't run in a while. But encouraged that I'm keeping to appx. 10 minutes/mile pace at 4.5 (and feels very relaxed at that pace!). Every little bit counts. Back down to 3 tomorrow and then 6.5 on Saturday.

Forgot to add this earlier: So yesterday I was doing powers of 2 (poorly) to take my attention away from running. It's good to focus on form and pace and all but you don't want to be thinking about the running, and therefore the exertion, pain, and effort all the time. Not very good psychologically. So you need active distraction. I can't stand the earphone cords dangling around or carrying around an iPod (even mini) so I play mind games.

So yeah, yesterday was powers of 2. Self explanatory: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, and so on. Today was enumeration of a different kind. For you music geeks out there, here's how it goes: You pick a note (let's start with C). Then you have to build chords on that note. *Starting* with C, you have to do all inversions of: major/minor/augmented/diminshed triad, and major-minor (dominant), major, minor, diminshed and half dimished. Example: Start with C. Major chord root position: C-E-G. Major chord 1st inversion: C-Eb-Ab. Major chord second inversion: C-F-A. ... Half diminshed chord 1st inversion: C-Eb-G-A. Half dimished chord 2nd inversion: C-E-F#-A.

Four sevenths chords * 4 positions = 16 chords. Plus 3 positions for major and minor is 22. Plus one position each of augmented, diminshed, and diminished seventh makes 25 chords per note. 12 chromatic notes times 23 chords per note equal 300 chords (some which overlap, of course). If that's not enough, make sure you think about all the notes with correct spelling (so G double sharp does not equal A). Also mentally call out the root of the chord (for major minor triads) or the tonic a seventh is related to. Then add in proposed fingerings on a piano two octaves up and down. Then think two hand arpeggiations both contrary and parallel. Then keep track of all of that to a steady beat and up the tempo progressively. That'll keep your mind off of running...

Perhaps tomorrow I'll try this: Start with a key (C Major for example). Then go through all the diatonic functions (supertonic, mediant, sudominant, dominant, submediant, subtonic/leading tone) and list all all closely related keys to which one can modulate using those functions. Then include secondary dominants. So C Major: pick the II chord. d minor can be VI of F Major, or iii of Bb Major. Start with one level removed. Then move to two levels (so C Major to C Major to F Major, and the C Major to C Major to G Major, and then C Major to d minor to Bb Major, and so on). With 4 or 5 degrees, that's a lot of harmonic progression one could make just based on close key relations...