Crikey it was cold!

Oh my goodness I did not want to get out of bed this morning when I woke up and saw that it was 23 degrees. 2-3. Now don't get me wrong. I spent 10 glorious years in Boston and survived months where 23 was the high temperature. But I'm in North Carolina now. My blood has thinned and I just don't do sub-freezing temps. But my coffee maker had already done its job and I was lured away from my flannel sheets (Love, love, love the coffee maker timer. Props to whoever invented that.) I had planned on driving down to Duke to run the Al Bueller trail, but since B was *just* getting in from an all nighter at work I decided to stick closer to home. I am glad I went, but as my whiny dailymile post will show, this was not a very good one. It was more of a walk/run. I actually ran 2.5miles but my Soleus was paused for the walk breaks. (Side note: Is this cheating??? I can't decide).

A couple of things that made me whiny:

1) Not being able to pick right up where I left off last October. What do you mean I can't take 3 months off of any type of physical exertion and still be able to run 13 miles, or even 3 for that matter? That's just rude. Ok, ok I know, I should calm down. It has really only been a couple of weeks of semi-consistent running. I have to be patient. But being patient sucks. Bad.

2) I think I need new shoes. My current shoes only have 250 miles on them, but the padding feels worn down and my shins are hurting mid-run.

In other news, I finally joined a gym today! Now that I am back to working full time on a normal schedule I really feel like I can fit it in. It is all part of my plan to do things differently this year. Last year I just ran. That's it. No cross training, no weight training. I am planning on taking a spinning class on Mondays and a body sculpting class on Saturdays and see what else I can fit in during the rest of the week. I am excited!

My Playlist

Fact: I can not run without music. I've tried and those runs without music have always been the worst. I lack motivation, can not keep my "pace" up and I just get bored. This is the playlist I had for the Half last October and I am not sick of it yet:

Sometimes though I get tired of people singing and just need some good tempo music. Enter techno. Now I am not a techno enthusiast outside of running. But the beat is just great for getting one foot in front of the other. I first started listening to techno when I used this podcast for the Couch to 5K program a couple of years ago. I have since found PodRunner on iTunes and love that it offers a wide range of bpm's depending on how tough I want to go out. And it's free! Doesn't get better than that!

My most recent find was the band The Pretty Reckless. Please don't judge me on the fact that the lead singer is none other than little Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl. It's one of the first full albums I have bought in a long time and it really does get me moving.

Oh my Lord, where have I been?

Well to say the Half burned me out would be an understatement. My ultimate goal was to keep the miles up in order to be in shape for the American Tobacco Trail, which is next month I think, but that was not to be the case. After the half I lost ALL desire to run. I had already committed to the Turkey Trot 8k with Nick in November and had to see that through. But the truth of the matter is that I hardly ran between the half and the Turkey Trot. My time was abismal. I ran the 8k in 56:45 (11:24/mile). I was so not into running. That run on November 24th was the last time I would lace up the shoes until January 24th. Two whole months. I have lost all conditioning and have to start from the very beginning. I was looking today and my running log from last year and I seemed to have the same pattern. Taking off for December and January. Last year I eased back into it and really started going in March and it only took a few weeks to go from 2 to 4 miles.

I am setting some pretty achievable goals right now. First goal is to make it around the (hilly!) AB Trail without stopping. Then a local 5k in April and a 10k in May. No decisions on a repeat half this fall yet. I am just taking it one step at a time.