Motivation

Why is it that when my schedule is disrupted, I seem to lose all motivation to run? Take for instance Tuesday, when I was at work for an extra hour trying to finish up a job before I left (which didn't happen). When I left, all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Even my wife telling me to run if I wanted to when I called to tell her I'd be home a little late didn't get me out the door. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to make myself get out the door on days like that. There's no other way for me to reach my potential.

My lower back has been acting up the past couple days. I'm not sure what happened, but it's sore, especially when I bend over. I ran yesterday, but only three miles. My lower back was tight, especially going uphill. I did some internet research today and found some things to try. I'm going to take today off and try some of the stretches and exercises and then try running tomorrow. I'll run and do the stretches and exercises and see if that helps.

Merry Christmas!

I had a pretty good Christmas. My wife, Puff, and I spent the day at her family's. Her grandmother, grandfather, and great aunt are in town for the holidays. Their Christmas celebration is a little different than my family's. We would go to Mass Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas we would open present in the morning and then basically lounge around the rest of the day. My wife's family goes to Mass Christmas day, has brunch, and then spends the rest of the day opening presents. I would have liked some time by myself to just relax and possibly take a nap. I did get up early to run. It was also a long day because we had to make sure Puff wasn't getting into things he wasn't supposed to be getting into. Where we can more or less let him roam around our house, the same can't be said about my in-laws' house.

As far as running-related gifts go, I got a fuel belt, a training log, Gu, a water bottle, a light for running in the dark, a Metro Run & Walk calendar and pen, and a copy of the latest issue of Track and Field News.

After sleeping in and running around lunchtime Christmas eve, I got up early Christmas day and the day after. I ran 6 miles Christmas Eve, 10 Christmas day, and then 15 the day after. I has a good finish to last week as well as a good beginning to this one.

Update

Despite the fact that I'm pretty tired right now, this week's gone well. Work's slow due to the holidays; it's nice not to have the phone ringing every few minutes but a little lonely with quite a few people gone. I don't go back home for Christmas or else I'd probably be gone too. My family got Thanksgiving and my wife's family got Christmas, although my family is coming for New Year's.

My wife and I got some exciting news this week: the doctor called and confirmed she's pregnant. Every indication pointed to her being pregnant, but the doctor called back with the results of the blood work to confirm it. The baby's due date is July 25.

I ran 14 miles Sunday and 8 Monday, but then didn't run Tuesday. My wife wasn't feeling well and she wanted me to stay with Puff. Yesterday I did 10, so at least when I run I'm putting in some good mileage. I'm really trying to make sure I put in the miles because I do want have a couple weeks of at least 70 miles before I start the 20k training.

Bitter

I'm not very happy today. I'm tired, and I really don't want to be at work. Thankfully, there's less than an hour left. My commute this morning was terrible. Traffic was backed up from the HOV lanes all the way into the lot. We inched along, and then all of a sudden traffic started to move. I think it took just about as long to get out to the HOV lanes as it did to get into DC. I didn't see anything that would have caused the backup either.

I was planning on running 10 or 11 miles tonight, but now I just don't know. I later for work than I wanted to be, so I'll have to see how much time I have. My wife is running with some of her friends tonight; they're running in the dark so they can check out all the Christmas decorations. I'll be home with the Puff.

Jingle Bell Jog

This past Sunday I ran the Jingle Bell Jog 8k, the last race of the year in my club's Championship Series. This is the first race I've run in a while that really felt like a race.

I ran just under the first three miles of the race with the chase pack. Right before the three-mile mark, we went up a hill, turned left, and then down a hill. I had tried to make a break a little earlier in the race, but wasn't successful. Going down the hill before the three-mile mark, I made my break. I opened up a gap and held it until the end. I even caught the guy who had been out of sight in front of me for some of the race about a quarter mile from the finish to finish fifth overall in 30:20.

My splits were 6:09, 6:03, 6:10, 5:58, 6:00. I started to tie up a little near the finish, but was still able to finish strong. I'm not sure exactly what to credit for my performance, but I ran 10 miles the day before and maybe that helped hold me back a bit at the beginning.

Training Partner

I've wanted to find someone to run with for a while now. I'm not looking for an everyday training partner, although that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but someone to run with maybe 2-3 times a week. I think it would help most when my motivation is waning and I'm having a little trouble getting myself out the door. I managed to contact someone through of all places the letsrun.com message board.

My possible training partner works at one of the local running stores, so I dropped by to see if he was working Saturday. It turns out he's the guy I see fairly often running in my neighborhood. He's built like me, tall and skinny, and has short hair, so my wife refers to him as my running twin. He's a nice guy, but he's running a marathon in a few weeks, so our schedules don't really match up right now. After his marathon, he's considering retiring and getting a real job. It figures, I find someone to possibly trtain with and his "career" might be almost over.