Love Christmas; glad it's over.

Winter-time training is hard. Usually, I take the winter months to work (very strenuously) on my wine drinking and cupcake-eating. Then, I inevitably have 10 extra pounds to tote around when I get back into my running routine on the flip-side of the holiday season.

This year, I'm choosing not to be a lardass; its much more difficult! Its not just the cold-weather or the lack of daylight that makes winter training hard. Its all the other stuff that I've got to focus on, places to go, family to hug, recipes to (attempt to) make, presents to buy, etc, etc. Even when I'm able to squeeze in a run between all the other things on my list, I'm distracted, unfocused and thinking more about what I probably should be doing than what I'm actually doing. One day a couple of weeks ago, I planned to do about 6-7 miles on a nice little loop trail at Rockwood Park. I only ended up running about 3 miles, because every time I passed the car, I thought of the errands I needed to be taking care of while Lucy was in school. Ultimately, the Mommy got the better of the Runner in me; I ended up at the Target with all the other errand-runners.

So, while I DO love Christmas and the whole holiday season, I'm pretty relieved its all over. Lucy & I got super crafty with presents this year, which was so fun but SO time consuming. Also, I'm pretty sure there is paint and/or glitter splattered on nearly every surface of the house.

Yesterday, I went for an awesome 12-miler @ my favorite spot, Pocahontas. It was amazing to feel totally focused on my run; not thinking about what I needed to grab at the store on the way home. With the 35K coming up in 2 weeks, its time to really get focused and ready to attempt my first-ever 20+ mile run. I've got one "long" run day left before I begin to taper down to get rested for the race on Jan 11. I'll likely tackle about 18 miles on Monday or Tuesday; after that, the preparation is over and I'm either ready or I'm not. I do feel less prepared for this race than usual, I think mostly because I've been so mentally distracted lately by all the holiday excitement. But, that will just make it even more of an adventure, right?

Off to clean my now-totally demolished post-Christmas house. Bah humbug! ;)