Off-Season Fitness

Today I ran on sunny Sand Run with my friend Debi.  Normally Debi and I run at five in the morning, so it was rather refreshing to see each other in daylight.  We decided to run the path, which is six miles, and tack on two neighborhood miles in the middle.  This way the last three miles were downhill, which is GENIUS when mapping out the long run.

This is EXACTLY how Sand Run looks in the sunshine. . .in pixel world.

Normally I would never run fewer than ten miles on a Sunday run. . .and I feel a bit sad that MyFitnessPal tells me I burned fewer than a thousand calories. . .but honestly, why do I need to run at least ten miles today?  Sand Run has plenty of hills, which increases my effort and consequently my fitness (tell it to MyFitnessPal, though), so it was a fantastic run.

I don't have any races planned until April, when I'll be running in with a relay team for the Canton Hall of Fame Marathon.  I might do a five-miler before then, and it's a teensy bit possible that I will run the Shamrock 15k, if I feel like torturing myself.  Click here if you want the details about that particular hellish race where I battle the Voices in my head.  Anyway, since I don't have any goal races until April, I had better think about what I'm going to do in the off-season, especially withYou-Know-What on the way.

My goals (so far):

1.  Finish my goal of 1,000 miles for 2014.  I'm pretty close.

2.  Do at least two short runs and one long run a week.  If it's too cold, I'm going to either use a Leslie Sansone DVD, or I'm going to bring up Dr. Who on Netflix and run in place to it.  Shhhhh. . .Don't tell my husband, but I'm planning to buy him a treadmill for Christmas.  I'm looking through Craigslist as I write this post.  Do you think he'll let me use it?

3.  Strength training.  I need heavier weights, and I think I'm going to try some Kettleball DVDs.

4.  Do yoga at least once a week.

The most important goal is to give myself a break.  I'm not going to set any time goals until my half marathons come up.  Our bodies need rest and relaxation, and so do our minds.  I am going to refrain from beating myself up mentally for just RUNNING instead of running with a specific purpose.  I'm going to run to enjoy.  What do you do during the off season?

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Winter Running

I've already told you that runners are weird, right?

This morning (8:00 am) I ran six miles on the Sand Run path.  If you are a runner, you know this is a somewhat challenging trail because of the hills.  The woods and waterfall are beautiful at any time of the year, but I really prefer fall.

This is my favorite spot on the trail.  

I naively decided that I was going to "take it easy" by doing six miles instead of ten for my long run day.  I also stupidly said (out loud, mind you) that we were going to "get 'er done.  One hour, tops."  This is what I found:

This isn't Sand Run, but you get the idea.

It's just not fair that my heart was racing, and my glutes and quads were burning, and I checked the Garmin to find that we were running a 12:30 pace.  Seriously.  The only consolation I have is that MANY fast runners passed us, and we found nearly all of them later WALKING BACK.  That's right.  There is a reason that my horoscope today said, "Slow and steady wins the race."  I feel vindicated, and hearing Meredith Brooks singing "Bitch" as I came down the home stretch made the finish that much sweeter.