Weekly Wrap-Up: December 10-16

I’m late. Spoiler Alert: Next week’s wrap-up is probably going to be late, too, since my current plan is to leave town on Saturday, December 22.

The week started late and ended with a run that wasn’t fun, but I got through it, and some of it even went well.

Weight Check: 167.8 pounds, down 0.9 from last week. I’ll take it. It was a stressful week, but I lucked out by working from home a few days where I don’t have nearly as many snacks available as I do when I’m at work. My weight is still a little higher than I’d like right now (especially considering what’s to come with the holidays), but at least for now, I can enjoy a small decrease. I’ll do my next weigh in Saturday morning pre-run, which, since it’s before I gather with my family, might turn out OK.

Total: 20.8 miles

I had to juggle my schedule around a bit (and then I had to juggle a second time since Thursday was originally scheduled for 4 miles but due to time constraints I made a last minute swap with Friday), and I don’t think I want to run 4 days in a row again anytime soon, but I made it work.

I waited until things dried out so there wouldn’t be any black ice, so Wednesday was my first day back. It may have been dry, but it was cold, 30 degrees. My legs felt like they had 3 days off, and in retrospect I probably should have waited until Thursday to do my workout. Still, once I warmed up (both running and temperature), I got better, and the cool down was a little faster than the warm up. It wasn’t quite as good as I’d like, but I got through it. I added about 30 or so seconds to get to 4.5 miles.

Thursday was 35, not quite as cold. My legs felt better, and my paces reflected that. I got a little faster on each mile without really pushing that hard until near the end. I’m happy with this run. (I still don’t know how I ended up with .12 instead of .11, but hey, I might need that extra .01 at the end of the year.)

On Friday, it was wet outside (more on that in a minute), which made the treadmill feel a little less bad. My mind hated it, but my legs were fine. I started at 11:32/mile, sped up to 11:19/mile at 2.5 miles, and at 3.5 miles, sped up to 11:07/mile. So it went pretty well.

Saturday…well, remember how I said it was wet on Friday? Yeah, it rained pretty heavily. And while it had eased up a little by Saturday morning, it was still wet and miserable. Parts of the greenway were flooded and impassable, and other parts had giant puddles, so sometimes I went around them through mud, sometimes I hurdled them, and sometimes I just ran through them, and all 3 options sucked in different ways. It didn’t rain the whole time, and it was never all that heavy, but it still wasn’t fun. My legs didn’t feel great, and I don’t know how much of that was the conditions (and the puddle avoiding), and how much of it was running 4 days in a row. I suppose my performance wasn’t terrible, and miles 2 and 3 were actually pretty good, but I definitely noticed a slow down late, and after hitting 9 miles, I decided to cut it short and just ran from that point to my car, so that’s where the 0.16 comes from.

While it’s definitely a strong contender for Worst Run of December(and that also says a lot about how well the rest of the month has gone so far), it wasn’t a complete disaster, and as time passes (and I dry out), it looks a little less bad. It still wasn’t fun while I was doing it, though.

So, I guess I still need to buckle down and finish that bleeping NYC race report. I’m not making any promises.

My schedule is about to be thrown into flux with holiday travel. I do enjoy seeing my family (especially my nephews, they’re the best), so I don’t mind juggling my schedule for them.