Today is June 11, 2019 (in case digital timestamping fails me here later), and I am exactly 150 days away from my next marathon. Monumental, here I come! This will be my fourth marathon ever, but really only my second-ish marathon in my self-proclaimed second running life. (If you take a long hiatus from running or racing you’re allowed to start over and approach each race with the wonder...
Aah, it’s that time of year again…when things start to slow down with the darker, colder days, and also feel frenetic around holidays, travel, obligation. But it’s also the time of year that tends to force reflection, so if, say, you have a defunct blog sitting out there ready to welcome you back with one simple login, you might be compelled to actually login and start typing.
Distance running is the ultimate humbling experience. I’ve been pondering the things I felt like I had definite control of on Saturday morning as I prepared to run the 2018 Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathon, and came up with two: the pair of shorts I selected and what I ate for breakfast. I suppose this is part of the reckoning process when things don’t go as well as we hoped they...
Hello! It’s been awhile since I sat down to reflect on my training here, so I decided to pause and do just that. Overall, I’m still feeling good and plugging along, though I’ve been a little more tired than usual this week. I’ve had a few nights of tossing and turning and some extra non-running tasks on my to-do list, but hopefully things will be calmer in the upcoming...
Hello and happy Friday! I’m feeling especially perky this morning. It’s my rest day and I slept in for an extra, glorious hour and a half. I had some speed work yesterday that was especially challenging due to the wind, and it’s also been a busy week in my non-running life. Lots to do, lots of places to be, and lots of wet weather to contend with. I’ve been biking to work...
The themes of my training for the past few weeks have been hill repeats and tempo/steady state miles. Overall, I’ve been feeling good and have been trying to take things one workout at a time. If I’m given a goal range for my workouts I’ve been trying to keep things on the low end. I figure I have plenty of recovery miles to relax, so as long as I’m feeling good I try to...
It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m really okay with hearts, candy, and waxing poetic about things I love. Maybe it’s the weather, or a raw emotional feeling lately, but my desire to pay homage feels especially heightened today. I can feel those sorta crunchy cinnamon hearts stuck in my teeth, and the smooth, powdery goodness of an invitation to be mine yours. Let’s all...
This winter has been more severe than the past couple of years. We’ve had very cold temps and regular wintry precipitation for the past month and a half, and while I can objectively look at the calendar and try to rationalize that it really hasn’t been that long, it feels like a small eternity. It didn’t start out feeling that way; a month ago I prided myself on bundling up and...
I was just sitting here glancing at my training calendar for the upcoming week, and spied a speed workout for tomorrow that got me legitimately excited, like go home and layout my gear excited, and make a new, special playlist excited. Weather permitting, I should be in for a fun workout, but the excitement itself is more noteworthy than whatever happens when my feet hit the (cold) pavement. So...
As far as cold mornings go, this morning was nothing to write home about, but still the onslaught of arctic temps and winter weather during the past month have started to make the dark mornings feel especially dark and especially cold, even if they are no longer elemental extremes. The cumulative effect of cold cheeks and numb fingers has intensified my longing for spring, though anything above...
