💥 I’m baaaaaack !
Soooo… it’s been awhile since my last blog post about my little bucket list run in the Big Apple. I took a good break, healed up and am bringing myself back to a good base of running. I’ve also taken the time to think about my 2020 goal chart. I’m not going to share the whole chart (yet), but here are some of the highlights to have a healthy happy run year:
- checklist goals: run 2020Ks in 2020, improve my minimum 2Xweek strength training and maintain my good warmup and stretch routines
- pace goals: mostly at the 5K & half distance this year. There will be other distances run, but will focus the PB goals on these 2.
- race adventures: the Banque Scotia 21K de MontrĂ©al and the Berlin Full (a moment of woe is me self pity leading up to New York resulted in a hasty lotto application…and gefunden, marathon #12 coming up in September)
- run community love: searching for ways to give back to the run community and am going to focus more #gratitude thinking this year.
For the first time since I started running I took a pass on the Hypothermic Half marathon event. I love this event as it brings out the winter warrior in all the participants. Almost each one of these events have been marked by frigid temperatures, freezing rain, ice-rink-like or snow storms. Remember the year those that could get out of their driveways were treated to running 50 plus times around the only cleared parking lot in Halifax and then those that couldn’t got to run in the pouring rain the following weekend? This event defines the annual winter running routine of figuring out which day would be the best to get your runs while reducing the risk of slips, trips and falls. Winter running for me adds that special “je ne sais quoi” spice to life. It makes you be more flexible with your schedule and slaps you with a lovely sense of reality. I wasn’t even close to race ready this year and couldn’t trust myself to treat this as a training run, so I stayed away. To be honest it was an icky day, but I found myself feeling a bit down for not having participated. I felt like I missed out on an important element of my running year.
Don’t know why I was worried that our Maritime weather mania wouldn’t provide other opportunities for me. This past week certainly fit the bill🤪 I had to shift my run days around to avoid snowfall and still managed to find challenging winter conditions. My workout run had a lovely skiff of snow hiding little patches of black ice. Choices for a long run were a frigidly cold clear sunny day or a warmer snowy day. Lucky for me, Love Training More tribe members came through for the -15C (felt like -22). Sidewalk conditions weren’t perfect but the company was 💙 The run started off cold, but quickly settled into a beautiful run day. Did my best to keep us on routes that would block the wind and managed to a route that didn’t cycle over the same roads. Now of course, it wasn’t perfect, our paths diverged yet despite our challenges we all managed to finish together(ish)….perfectly acceptable !
 #gratitude list for this run:
- run tribe … always
- Embracing feelings of being let down..It’s OK especially when you were expecting more
- Winter warrior wonders
- Post run brunch with the parents
- Properly interpreting Coach’s “may wish to consider” suggestion 🥰