What's next?

What's next for me? I don't have a quick answer beyond a charity walk on Saturday.

After a strong showing at the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick 5K, I found myself agreeing with Cory that maybe next year, the 10K would be a good idea.

Then, after our strong showing at the Drake Relays half marathon, I found myself with the odd feeling that I've — well, "conquered" or "mastered" are too strong of words ... maybe solved or figured out the half marathon.

And while I proved last year that I can bike across the state of Iowa in a week, I decided that for personal and not physical reasons, I would skip RAGBRAI 2015.

Clearly it's time for something different. I have a few ideas rattling around my head, but nothing I'm ready to commit to on the Internet.

New race distances are definitely in play, such as doing the Newbo 10K (to help a friend commit to the Newbo Half Marathon!), or, closer to home, the Capital Pursuit 10-miler.

Heck, even though hills, heat and humidity are my idea of hell, maybe this would be the best year to attempt the Bix 7 in Davenport — people rave about it, but it's always on the last day of RAGBRAI.

I'm giving myself the rest of the month to figure it out; I kept up a reasonable amount of exercise in the two weeks between the half marathon and Saturday's Woofin' It 5K (race report still to come). I chose "the rest of the month" for two reasons:

One, it seems like the right amount of time to keep myself from burning out, mentally and physically, on running.

And two, my personal life is getting pretty chaotic in a good way: travel plans and job transitions. Starting Monday, I'll no longer have a full-time job; I'm switching to two part-time gigs, one of which has a strong potential to become full-time by the end of the year.

So by the time June arrives, I'll be firmly parked in Des Moines for a while, and I'll have a better sense for what my days look like.

Yes, exercise is a stress-reliever, and I plan to keep active for the next few weeks, but to try to plan workouts around leaving one job/starting another/hitting the road multiple weekends seems like an added source of anxiety.

Tentatively, I'd like to get two bike rides of substance, two runs and two yoga sessions in a week. So many of my friends are into weight-lifting that I feel compelled to worry about getting strength training in ... but that's something I'll worry about in June!

Other people suffer on the stairs, too

More days than not, I take the stairs, from ground floor up to the fifth, to get to my workplace.

I don't know exactly how long I've been doing this, but it's been long enough where I feel like it should be getting easier. You probably inferred, correctly, that it does not feel easier yet.

Every day, I trudge into the reception area out of breath, hopefully not sweating too hard, and need a minute before speaking in full sentences to co-workers. And because I think too much, I worry about what these co-workers think.

If someone sees me entering or exiting the stairwell, I worry they think I'm a smug athlete quietly judging their elevator usage. If they see me just a few steps away at the top, I worry they think something is creepily wrong with me, to make my cheeks flushed/my breathing so heavy.

So it was with much excitement that I recently discovered: I'm not the only one!

I was passing the stairwell entrance on my way to the company kitchen when the door opened. A guy emerged and followed me to the kitchen, so I said to him: "Hey, did you take the stairs all the way up?"

(I seem to have forgotten how much I dislike talking right after the stairs. Either that or I subconsciously suspected he got on at floor four.)

He had indeed. Once he caught his breath, we commiserated about how horrible they were, even though we each had athletic hobbies, and how apparently you just have to train on the stupid things if you want to get any better.

What a nice discovery, that I'm not the only self-important athlete/heavy-breathing slug in my office.