I wonder if this is a plateau - time to mix it up

This past week my achilles has been aching, my knee has been throbbing, and I haven't gotten much help from the clouds. My 5-mile times were off a bit this week and I think it is time to throw a monkey wrench into my regimen so that my body is forced to adapt. I'm going to start doing longer runs but slowing the pace some so that I can start to begin to adapt to the conditioning needed to finish a marathon. I think my training has been focused too much on eclipsing times, and I need to work on finding my stride & rhythm more.

I got the feeling this week that my 13-14 hour work days and intense training has started to take a toll on me. It is quite a test when you are pushing yourself to get a new business off the ground and try to run your first marathon concurrently. Both are a perfect parallel because they are long-term reach goals that mean persevering through the pain and that voice in your head that makes you want to quit. It requires waking up every day and pushing myself the limit mentally, following by physically, then followed by mentally again in the evening every day. Then going to sleep, waking up, and having to do it all over again.

I've decided to start taking some time away from my company at nights and start working more on producing music for my record label. This will help me balance my workload and diversify it some more. Below is the cover-art for 2 songs that I have coming out on iTunes and every other major e-tailer in August and September.

I co-produced both of these songs, and have 2 more solo projects coming out in Oct and Nov. My friend Jesse helped me refine these cover art concepts because my photoshop skills are still in their genesis although improving! The first one is called "House Flyz" and notice the Turntables in the eyes of the fly and the LED Mixer display in it's nose. LOL! Check out the "Island Hopper" cover. I took this picture with my iPhone during the descent into Bermuda for a wedding I went to in May! I love technology, straight from a phone to the web to someone's mp3 LCD display.