Weekend Warrior

Months have passed since my last post. The catalyst for the hiatus was simply a technical problem; the last post I wrote would not upload and I did not persevere in investigating the cause. I still don't know why; I hope the problem has resolved itself. I didn't return to posting because I wasn't running more than a couple of times a week and didn't have much to say about it.

I had another stress fracture back in August and spent much the rest of the month and some of September recovering. Following that I was busy with teaching and I also fell into a little business of making and selling firewood. I spent a lot of spare time splitting, stacking, loading and unloading wood so I had some good upper body workouts but not much running. I typically ran a two hour trail run on Saturday or Sunday and a 3 to 5 mile run once during the week. I kept hoping to increase my overall mileage but it just wasn't happening. I've had the last two weeks off from work so I've been able to get out more. We had a big snow storm the first week which impeded my running somewhat. This past week I need 55.2 miles to reach 1000 for the year. I ran 55.3 in six outings. Evidently, I was in shape for it, but I don't think my body is conditioned to maintain that level without risking an injury. This week will have to be a blip statistically. I had been averaging about 16 per week.

I'd like to run 1500 this year. To have a chance at that, I am going to try maintaining a 25 mile per week average until our daylight hours lengthen and then I'll work up to 35 or so per week. Another goal is to avoid an injury that would put me out of commission for any length of time. Weeks with zero miles are hard to make up. I also hope to complete an ultra-length event.