Merry Christmas to all.  We’ve had two videochat sessions with the fam, one on Skype and one on Google Chat.  The latter was more successful but still somewhat unsatisfactory.  I’d really like to take better advantage of today’s technology to improve our video chat sessions, but I guess some research is required.

The top of my left foot continues to bother me, and it’s snowy outside, so I”m taking today off, and I’ll probably try swimming tomorrow.  It’s not bad, but I’d really like it to fully heal so I can dive back into training.  I’ve been feeling an uptick in anxiety lately, which I’m guessing is related to the holidays, though it’s hard to say, but I do wonder if it’s related to taking two weeks off, and post-race letdown.  Who the hell knows.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to do next year athletically, other than run.  To me, there are different area’s of fitness – cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility.  I made some inroads on strength last year by doing 5000 pushups.  It’s hard to say if and what that really accomplished, but I think it must have been good for me.  Right?

When I was younger, I could run fast, slow, whatever, and I never got injured in the slightest.  These days, it’s not that way anymore, and I think lack of stretching is a contributing factor.  I’ve spent a lot of hours stretching, in soccer, basketball, cross country, crew, and so on.  I always found it annoying and basically a waste of time.  But, maybe it’s not.  And even if it is, I find that I don’t like being ridiculously inflexible.  I have always been inflexible, but all that annoying stretching made me more flexible than I am now.  So I’m thinking next year, I’ll set a goal to do ten minutes of stretching at least three times per week, or something like that.  In addition, I’m going to continue what I’ve started over the last couple of months, stretching my calves while waiting for traffic lights.  (There is one nasty, long traffic light I run through twice on most of my runs.)  Wouldn’t it  be cool to actually be flexible?  I’m guessing I’d need more than 10 minutes three times a week to be actually flexible, but you have to start somewhere, right?

I have exercised more this year than any year since I started working.  It certainly helps that I’m not working full time, and both my kids are in school at least part-time.  And, as has been well-documented here, I have other reasons.  However, I’m interested in the reckoning.  How much did I really work out?  We have two weeks left, so it’ll change a little, but most of it is done.

Running: 958.3 miles  –> 19 miles per week

Biking: 1022.4 miles –> 20.5 miles per week

Swimming: 59,617 yards –> 1200 yards per week

I’m actually amazed at the amount of biking and swimming I did.  On the flip side, I thought I’d run more.  I’ll call 3 miles of biking equivalent to one mile of running.  That’s probably generous, but my 10 mile cycling loop is at least as hard as my 3 mile running loop, so we’ll start there.  As for swimming, I’ll call 1600 yards equal to 1 mile running.  So equivalent miles for the year would be 1410, or 28 miles per week.

Next year, I’d love to get in 25 miles per week of actual running and maintain the swimming and biking.  I’m not sure that’s realistic.  We’ll see where it goes, I guess.  Tomorrow it’s back to the pool because my left foot is still hurting.   I can’t believe I actually swam nearly 60,000 yards this year.  It’s so monotonous, and the lane-sharing thing, and getting into the water and so on.

I was not in the mood for this this morning. After two weeks of not running, my foot was hurting last week, and I just didn’t feel like racing today. Nevertheless, after paying the 12K entry fee, I felt committed. I decided to switch to the 5K and just do the best I could. I knew the course was hilly and not PR material, but I hoped all my half marathon training might help me run faster than expected.

At the start line, I was looking around for fast runners and really not seeing many. The thing is, most faster runners run the 12K at this race. That’s definitely the main attraction at this event. We started out with a downhill, and then immediately hit the first uphill. Fine, I was expecting hills, but I tried to stay with the pack. Immediately, I started to feel like I was going too fast. Looking at my splits, I actually ran a fairly even pace through the race, so who knows. The first interminable hill ended, followed by I think some flat and downhill, and then we hit another brutal hill. The first mile was definitely the worst. 7:20 (6:59 GAP), and I was dying and wishing I’d never signed up for this stupid race.

Mile two was flatter. i was getting left behind by the front-runners, and no one was catching up to me. I ended up running most of the race alone. Maybe the second big hill was actually in the second mile? Pace 7:54 (7:32 GAP).

When I finally got to the 2nd mile marker, I started to feel that an end was in sight. I also knew I’d climbed enough hills at that point and not gone down the same amount, so there must be some flat and downhill. And there was – lots of lovely flats and beautiful downhills. Mentally, though, I just wanted it to be over. I tried to hang with a couple youngish teenage boys that went blasting by me, but I struggled to keep up with them on the downhills. Usually I’m a pretty good downhill runner, but apparently not today. Pace: 7;23

Strava says my 5K time was 23:15. Race results say 23:24. Either way, not great, but definitely not terrible. I really want to break 22, but today was definitely not the day for that. Bike ride yesterday afternoon plus sore foot plus margarita at dinner last night plus bad attitude equals slowish running, I guess.

On the plus side, I surprisingly came in first in my age group out of 70 runners, and 5th female out of 500 runners.  The 12K was the main event, and faster runners tend to do that race.  I probably could have run the same pace in the longer race and not placed nearly as well.  Still, it makes me feel better about the race.

I’m continuing to ride high on my Seattle Half Marathon race result.  It’s a crazy thing.  It seems to irrelevant to run a half marathon in 1:47.  It’s a middling to slowish time.  Faster than most people can run, slower than pretty much any college cross country athlete could run without training.  Fast for me.  And for whatever reason, I just feel so excited to have run that time.

It’s easy to enjoy thinking about running fast when thinking about training is off in the indefinite future.  Well, the definite future.  As of Sunday, my next half marathon will be thirteen weeks away.  I have a 12 week training plan that I’m planning to follow.  I very loosely followed the 10K plan, sort of, leading up to the Seattle half.  This time, I’m planning to follow the lowest mileage half marathon plan.  It ranges from 31 to 47 miles per week.  I had several weeks at about 30 miles a week, up to 35 miles per week, on my last training cycle, so this seems achievable.  In general, I subtract a mile from all the recommended run distances if I run around my neighborhood, due to the hills.  This means that generally speaking, I subtract a mile from most of my weekly runs.  That lowers the mileage to more like 25 to 40 miles per week, which is definitely achievable.

I’m watching a documentary on the Boston Marathon, Boston,  I haven’t watched the movie specifically about the bombings, and I don’t plan to, but I can’t ignore not watch a running movie.  It’s great.  Makes me want to run the Boston Marathon, of course, but that would require, you know, running a marathon.  Actually, running at least two – running one fast enough to qualify (which would require running not much slower than my half – for a full), and then of course, Boston itself.  It does seem like a bucket list sort of thing to do.  Someday, maybe.

In any case, running starts again on Monday.  It’s also time to start cycling.