Times they are a changing

Friday was my last day on the NetApp project.  It's been 17 months and it will be very strange not to go into the office on Monday.  I've had such a great time with this team and have learnt a huge amount.  Two years into my time with ACN and I feel like I have started to "get it".  There is a lot of discussion about the challenges of bringing in experienced hires i.e. folks not recruited straight out of college.  It gets more challenging the older the hire.  I know a lot of EH that haven't made the jump.  Honestly I've swung in roundabouts myself at times.  I think two things really helped a. I had a very clear view of what I wanted to get out of ACN and b. landing good projects with good people.  That said, I really need to get promoted next year or it's time to move on - it's an up or out culture so in terms of the ACN career path next year is do or die for me.  I've been pondering what I'd do if it does prove that I need to move on.  6 years on from arriving in the US I feel much more confident about the choices I have and the opportunities out there.  With the ACN move I opened up a second career path in Change Management, although it's clear to me that the Communications work remains my bread and butter; my love/hate relationship with it remains alive and well, but, at the end of the day, I am good at it and have some good solid skills that are very marketable.  As always, we shall see.
Currently I am "on the bench".  As we roll off projects we go to the bench to wait for a project to come up and/or proactively apply for open roles that are posted by our HR folk.  Demand is high so finding a role isn't the issue, finding the right role is.  We are still waiting to hear about the job we pitched for so right now I am not being put forward for other roles or applying for them.  Being on the bench offers time to do some additional training and is downtime away from the client facing work.  Definitely don't want to hang out here too long though, that's not good either.  Patience patience patience - the right thing will show up.
Training is going well, with my 50k coming in August.  That will be a good test of my fitness.  10m/16k have become easy training runs (almost a day of rest..... seriously, who would have thought).  Starting next Saturday the marathon distance will be the new "long training run" with the program having me run the equivalent of that distance every second week.....followed by a 10 miler the next day.  I think at my peak in the 50k training plan I am running a total of 52m/83k a week - that's a lot of running.  Although I still only run five times a week (okay as I write that does sound a lot - it's now just become the normal thing to do, at least in my mind).