Getting Back to Business

Despite taking running gear with me and even looking at the Google maps of the area, I was unable to run while away at our Engaged Encounter retreat over the weekend. Breakfast was at 8 and presentations began at 8:40, so basically I would have had to wake up at the same time I do during the week to run around 5:45, which I was not about to do. Moreover, for anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of going to an Engaged Encounter weekend, it’s exhausting. You’re doing presentations and sharing and all that jazz all day from morning till night and it’s freaking exhausting. Annie and I were ready to be done with the thing after about noontime on Saturday.

Anyway, as a result of this, I missed some running, again, and had to restart my program, again. I retooled the entire program to take these delays into account and will still get two 13 milers in before the half marathon. After some careful thought, I am going to also try expanding my running from 4 days a week to 5 days to better handle the higher mileage later in the program and to keep me from having to wake up at 5 AM or earlier to get the longer distances in before 7 AM. My basic idea is to run three 5 milers during the week, per usual, but to then run a “gap” run on Saturdays, and my usual long run on Sunday. The gap run would be something around 2-4 miles that would top up my mileage for the week without demanding longer workweek morning runs and by extension an earlier wake-up time. Plus I don’t really want to waste a perfectly good Saturday morning not running when I have more time, generally speaking, than I do on any given workday.

This weekend, however, will be the exception for several reasons. One, I don’t need a gap run to reach my mileage goal. I have an 8-mile long run scheduled for Sunday so that will make 23 miles total. Secondly, Sunday is supposed to be both bitterly cold and very windy. With a high of 27 and a 20 mph wind, the wind chill will be somewhere around 15 or lower, I would think. That’s just too freaking cold to be running outdoors. So, I am moving my long run up to Saturday and taking Sunday off so I don’t get frostbite.