Monthly Archives: January 2011
Making the Commitment: Making goals
This is sort of a continuation from yesterday’s “Time to move on” post. In the past few days I’ve been doing much more thinking than I usually do. January has no doubt been a good month with getting my running back on track, but I’ve realized that not having clear-cut goals have left me feeling a bit lost.
These past couple of months have been a much needed break from having goals, but that being said, I have felt like I don’t have a sense of direction not having some sort of monthly goal set up.
With one month of 2011 down, it’s time for me to get focused again on a lot of things. When it comes to running, I’m not going to set any big-time goals for February. I’m still in recovery mode, so I want to keep things going one run at a time. I also plan to keep doing more core work and cross training a couple of times a week. It’s something I’ve slowly started, but want to get more consistency.
It may seem like I forgot about it, but February’s goal is related to eating: going meatless. I first want to thank my Twitter followers for introducing me to the correct term for the month since I will still be eating fish: I will live February as a pescetarian. Like any big-time race, I wonder if I’ve prepared enough. Fortunately my wife is planning on doing this with me, so this shouldn’t be a problem. It should be … interesting. I’ll certainly blog more about it as the month moves along.
As for other goals this year, I have some things in mind that I’m not going to put out there yet. I have some ideas for “comeback” races; I have PRs I’d like to set; I really want to do another month-long streak; and I want to have a defining “big” race this fall. At this point in time though, I just want to get through the next four weeks remaining pain-free before I get too far along. No guarantees that I won’t make any announcements though.
Time to move on
45.1 miles so far in January, with a day to go. I’m not even sure how I got to that many this month. And since I’ve finally got a streak going to zap-the-zero on Monday, I’m pretty sure that I’m running tomorrow.
I really have to make a decision soon about the Shamrock Half. Honestly, I can’t afford to stay somewhere for a couple of days, but since I have friends in the Virginia Beach area, I’m sure I could stay somewhere. It’s not ideal — I love going to the beach that weekend when it’s not crowded at all. It’s become such a tradition … but I can’t use that as a reason to not run Shamrock.
My brain is still spinning. I’ve been trying to gauge my thoughts on previous years, but that’s not really working. I don’t have the first experience from four years ago documented, but I do remember having a strong training session as I was part of a speed/endurance group that had some awesome track and hill workouts. Three years ago I ran fewer miles in January than this year, had a strong February then ran into major foot issues during the race. Two years ago I was just shy of 60 miles in January and had a decent race. Last year was far and away my best January ever. I ran 75 miles in January, 93 in February. The translation — a PR that was a long time waiting.
Today, though, I realized that it’s time to move on from last year and for that matter what happened in years past. Last year was awesome, but if I don’t move on from it, I’m going to do what I’ve done in years past — I’ll keep comparing myself to the runner I’m not anymore. And that attitude is actually what made last year so great. I pretty much moved on from previous years and did my best to not look back.
So what you have in this post is nothing new. I’m no closer to a decision than I was the other day. Sure I’m still leaning a certain way, but the final decision is going to come from a different frame of mind than what it would have even a few days ago.
Making the commitment: Weigh-in No. 4
I’ll take maintaining my weight over a gain any day. I’m ending the month as I began it: 188.8 pounds.
I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t take more initiative to eat less. I think I’m going a good job of eating better … I just need to eat less. I’m looking forward to my changes in February. Much more on that soon.
The 4-mile “milestone”
Every injury has taught me to appreciate running more than I did before, and in the past few months I’ve learned even more to not take things for granted.
While I needed a break, it has been frustrating at times. I’ve somehow managed, though, to kind of just go along for the ride and see what happens.
These past few weeks have been very good as I’ve slowly increased my distance and intensity on my runs. Today I hit a milestone that I thought was probably another week or two away — 4 miles.
It was the first time hitting 4 miles (besides the marathon) since Oct. 27, only a day away from three months ago. That seems unreal that I’ve gone a quarter of the year since doing that.
While I haven’t been keeping track too closely of the times on my run, today was one of the fastest “everyday” runs since the beginning of October. I was just a few seconds away from having an easy run under a 9-minute pace today.
I felt good out there in shorts while it briefly snowed. I didn’t think about my knee all that much — I just ran. I’m actually starting the year much better than several other years.
There’s a lot going through my head right now with whether or not to do the Shamrock Half Marathon. Part of me wants to drop out and just focus on continuing to recover. Another part of me kind of aches about thinking of ending a tradition. This would be my fifth consecutive Shamrock Half if I do it. I still have time to get to the mileage I want and I’m pretty sure my fitness from marathon training has stuck with me relatively well.
I’m not deciding anything today, but I’m definitely leaning a certain way. I’m not really looking for advice on what to do — I know what my options are and I certainly know the risks, rewards and potential disappointments with either choice. It’s just a spinning wheel in my mind that I can’t totally figure out yet.
Just a little patience
I’m nowhere close to saying “I’m back,” but for the first time since my ITB issues started three months ago I have some confidence with my running. I said the same thing in my “It’s a long tunnel” post a week ago, but after looking at my Daily Mile stats this weekend I realized how long of a journey this has been. It hasn’t felt all that long — I guess with my son’s birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas all mixed in, I was pretty distracted for a while. Plus I was relatively content to take a running break after not having one for a while.
I have no idea where things are headed the second half of this winter and early spring. I don’t need to have plans or a come back race planned right now. I just want to keep doing what I’m doing and see how I feel week to week before I decide anything.
Above are my miles from my peak week in marathon training when my problems began to what I did this week. As you can see, I had three weeks of steady decline until the marathon — much more than I wanted — then a spike on marathon week and then some extremely low mileage as I kept doing a little bit to get to 1,000 miles for the year.
It’s very refreshing to see things starting to go back up in the past few weeks. This week I hit 13.1 miles — completely unintentional to hit the half marathon distance, but still cool nonetheless.
Making the Commitment: Weigh-in No. 3
189. I’d still say that’s maintenance, especially since if I rounded my numbers that’s what all three weigh-ins this year would be anyway. It’s become a month of maintenance for me in many regards. As I slowly get back into running, things are starting to feel somewhat normal … like a maintenance stage. I kind of need it.
My love affair with cows and chickens will soon be coming to an end and I think with that my maintenance frame of mind will start to change as well. Plus, I hope, the weather will warm up at least a few degrees soon and these nights that I feel really lazy will go away too.
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