ON THE HORIZON

With the shin problems, Thanksgiving, and busy time at work, I ended up taking a week-and-a-half off. The good news is that the shin feels fine. The bad news is that I feel fat and out of shape. I just seemed to be getting in some decent mileage, along with some good tempo runs. Then the next thing I know, all thoughts of 200-250 miles in November went out the window. Anyway, I’m slowly building back up – emphasis on “slowly” as my first run back was literally 3 miles.

Friday and Saturday we got about 8” on snow dumped on us. I hadn’t even really thought about skiing yet – and ski racing was the furthest thing from my mind. Then I got an email from the Birkie stating that my wave only had 50 open spots remaining. Needless to say, I couldn’t afford to wait and I broke out my credit card. So I at least have one race on the horizon.

I used my down time to go through all the magazines that tend to pile up over time. I came this article that asks the question, “Is it time to get over the marathon?” It has some great points and has me seriously considering skipping another marathon in 2011.

I also compiled all the drills and strength-training articles I could find. I want to give this type of training some serious consideration in the upcoming year. After years of telling myself that “just running” is enough, I’m pretty sure that there are gains to be made with these types of exercises. At least I intent to find out.

Finally, here’s another article I came across regarding R-cubed. I’m still not sure if I’ll do this in 2011 or not.

Quote of the Day;

“Conventional wisdom views the progression of distances, from 5K to 10K, on to the half marathon and the marathon, as a progression of ability and seriousness.” – Jonathan Beverly