Friday, December 07, 2007

What have I been doing with myself?

Yeah well, I stepped away from blogger for a bit. Believe me, it's not due to any love lost for you fine folks, but rather for the lack of anything worth posting going on. How do you write about the monotony of pounding out mile after mile in training for a marathon? God bless all who have the ability to eek out a few post worthy words from daily running. There are some that do it quite well and we're all thankful.

As it typical for any and all this time of year, life has gotten a little busier. Lauren and I are both being careful not to schedule too much of our week so that we're feeling too stressed or pulled in too many directions. Throughout the holiday season, it has gotten a little harder to find time to get my runs in. I'm mixing up my runs between morning runs and after work runs. It usually depends on my mood or the temp in the morning. Morning temps have been in and around the 30's as of late, but this weekend was in the high 40's with highs in the afternoon around 70. Weird. I did experience a really cool run the other night after work. As you can see below, I put on my reflective wear and headlamp and went for a run through the Tiny Kingdom.
Probably one of the coolest runs I've had to date. Running in the pitch black made the 8 mile run go by so quickly. It was a total blast, but a little tougher on the body due to the unexpected dips and changes in the road. Taking unexpected jars worked me a little harder than I would have liked but it was totally worth it.
Saturday I scheduled my longest run to date, a 21 miler. The goal today was to not set any records but to just get the distance in. I felt great for the first 17 or so, then I could feel my shoulders start to slump a little and my body started to wear down. After a while it felt like someone was pushing down on me the whole time. But the good news is that I finished and finished strong at that. 6.2 miles to go to the goal. Thankfully, next week's long run is a few miles shorter. Will work on speed then.
That's all for now. Hope everyone is enjoying their Holiday season. As cliche' as it's become, don't forget the Reason for the season and remember those serving our country who won't be able to see their families this Christmas. Take care and thanks for reading.


8 comments:

Cliff said...

Matt,

It's definitely a sweet bike. Just holding it makes me feel fast :)

I enjoy running after work. Night running is a great way to de-stress. I never gone more than 10 miles.

Paul said...

Hey Matt,

How is the mileage build going? What have you been able to build to? You should at least put up a weekly update ;)

Molly said...

Great run...keep it up.

Glad to hear someone else is trying to hit the brakes on over scheduling!

Hope you and Lauren have a great Holoday Season.

Take Care

Crash said...

YES! The fix that I needed. Enjoy the Holidays!

Donald said...

Hey, thanks for the link. Downtime is perfectly reasonable - from training, from blogging, whatever. As long as you come back to it at some point, it's all good.

rocketpants said...

I'm the same way with just a running race. I get to the end and think "I just ran...what else is there to talk about"...I hope the training has gone well. When is the marathon again.

PS...the cactus is real, not fake...I bought it in Cali, it didn't trek cross country from MA.

Oly said...

Night running is a blast.

DV said...

nice work matt - those long runs leave the body aching - give yourself lots of recovery time. yea, the last hill of the village to village was a bee-otch! nice call..