January 28, 2010

A Little Workout

I've been a little antsy to run fast lately, so this morning I ran a "workout." I ran over to the middle school and ran a brief fartlek workout on the soccer field. I alternated a lap hard with a lap easy for eight laps. It was not hard at all, but it felt good to get the legs moving a little.

Why did I run the workout on the soccer field? I watched a video last week on Flotrack that featured some athletes in the Nike Oregon program doing a workout on grass. It seemed like a good idea, so I tried it. You get the benefits of running fast without the pounding you'd take on the road.

January 24, 2010

Update

This weekend has gone by way too fast. Is it too much to ask for another Saturday and Sunday? I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow--I know this week is going to be hectic.

Training went well this week. Having a tired wife who wanted to go to bed early helped. I'm running about 45 minutes a day now, and I want to add in an extra 15 minutes per day over the next week or two.

I still don't have any definite racing plans. I'm thinking about the Army 10 Miler as a goal race, though.

January 19, 2010

Three-Day Weekend

I finally took my first day off in 2010 this weekend. I was out late Friday with friends, and slept in Saturday morning. I was just unable to get myself out of bed before my wife left, and then with the kids and a house there's just too much else to do on a Saturday to run any other time than the first thing in the morning.

Sunday and Monday's runs were good. I want to get up to running an hour a day and then begin some tempo and fartlek work. After running Monday morning, the kids and wife and I went to IHOP for breakfast. It's become something of a tradition to go out for breakfast on federal holidays. Plus, we had some gift cards from Christmas we hadn't used yet.

January 15, 2010

Update

There's not too much going on with my running at the moment. I'm getting out the door each morning, getting consistent as I think about building up the daily mileage. I'm working on putting together a plan for the year. I don't think I want to run a marathon, so I'm going to try and find some shorter distance races and maybe a half-marathon this fall.

I'm sure everyone's seen the destruction in Haiti by now. I have a friend who has some family there. They're ok, but can't get out of the country. I was also glad to hear that the kids at an orphanage run by two women from Pittsburgh will be able to come to the US.

January 11, 2010

Hunger

One way that I know I've been running is my appetite. I certainly feel more hungry and am eating more than I was a month ago when I wasn't running much.

The weekend was pretty good. I had a good run Saturday morning, and just a short run Sunday morning. I was up late Sunday night, so I just ran for half an hour this morning. It's amazing how much different it feels without the wind. This morning was probably the coldest temperature-wise, but without the wind it was much more bearable.

We took the Christmas tree and decorations down this weekend too. Our living room and front yard are so empty.

January 08, 2010

New Snow

Last night we received a dusting of snow. I've always loved running in the snow, and had a great time this morning as I made footprints on the sidewalks.

Thus far I've run every day in 2010. I don't expect to run every day this year, but a week and a day of consistency is nice since I don't think I had that for the majority of last year.

I've been slacking off on my core exercises this week. Last week I did well, but this week I've been lazy.

January 04, 2010

Winter Weather

I've lived in Virginia for seven-and-a-half years now, and this is the longest stretch of cold weather I can remember. It's been colder before, it just hasn't remained cold for this long before. It reminds me a lot of winter in Pittsburgh.

In addition to the cold, this weekend featured 30 to 40 mile per hour winds as well. Running into the wind felt like standing still at times. Saturday and Sunday I ran for about 40 minutes.

This morning was cold, but at least the wind had died down. Like the past two days, I ran for 40 minutes. Now it's time to finish up work, and since the wind has lessened when I get home I can fix the Christmas decorations that were blown out of place.

January 01, 2010

New Year

I'm not a big fan of new year's resolutions. It's not because I don't like resolutions, but rather I think the new year is an arbitrary date and could just as easily be replaced by July 24. That being said, it's the first day of 2010 and I'm writing in my blog again. This year, I resolve to write on a regular basis. We'll see how long that lasts.

I started of my new year with an easy half hour run. I'm still trying to get consistency back into my running. I don't have any concrete plans for 2010 yet, but I'm fairly certain I won't be running a marathon this year.

I hope everyone has a happy new year!