Back to it

My legs and mind were ready to run days before my toe would allow.  I was shuffling along in dress shoes with no socks (in 30 degrees some mornings, brr!) because any extra friction on my shoe caused extreme pain.  I had to drain my toe's blisters daily.  Barf.  Finally Thursday I was all set to enjoy our 60 degree Thanksgiving day for a run in the sun.  And then my parents dropped me off at my place and I realized that my cell phone was in the back seat of their car.  Fail.

Instead of getting my nice little spring weather frolic in, I had to jump in my car and chase them down the interstate.  By some grace of God, I managed to see them pull off to get gas about 30 miles south of my city, and could retrieve my phone, instead of following them all the way home-home, only to turn around and drive back.  Once I got back to town, I was so hungry and crabby that a run was the last thing on my mind.

But since I wasn't able to get in a run, I wasn't able to commit to a super fun 5k on Friday night.  A bunch of my runner friends were doing the Jingle Bell 5k, and were dressing up as Santa and his reindeer, decked out in battery pack Christmas lights.  I'm cheap, and just could not justify spending $35 and possibly being injured in a 5k, because I wasn't smart enough to make sure my legs were okay beforehand.

While they were running, I got a nice leisurely 3.5 mile run in and everything seemed ok.

Sunday I got a nice 6 miler in, with what could be one of the last days I can run sans coat.  Judging by everyone else out running, I probably should've been wearing one too, but it was nice in the sun (but I froze in the shade, holy brr!).

My next round of training starts the 2nd week of January, and Shawn had recommended that until I start up, I should really focus on some good base building.  Try to rack up the miles, but to do so at recovery or general aerobic heart rate zones.  He also recommended that I do a max heart rate test so I know my exact zones instead of my rough guestimation.

I created a pre-training program (because that's what all normal people do) based on Pfitz post marathon plan, and then a couple more weeks tacked on, and put it on the fridge on Sunday.  After logging my 6 mile run, I realized that I needed 141.7 miles to hit my goal of 1400 miles for the year.  That averaged out to 28.7/week which seemed.... tough but doable.  So I quickly consulted the fridge to see that from November 28th-December 31st, I have 142 miles planned.

Interesting how things like that work out, eh?  :)