Many runners, myself included, have used the expression……

I will say that after looking at my stats for January, I was very pleasantly surprised. I hit over 50 miles for the month. Now preHypopara, I would regularly ran 100 miles in a month. I am proud of that. I am equally proud of my 50 in January.

I downloaded a training plan for my virtual NYC Half and have been following it. As said before, I am not worrying about pace. I’ve been using heart rate and training zones to set where I am running. It seems to be working because I’ve been able to stick to the plan, finish the workouts and actually feel good doing so. I have only missed one workout so far and that was inauguration day and sorry not sorry that was a day to savor and enjoy which I did! Other than that I’ve stuck to the plan.

A few observations……

I have forgotten how to dress to run outside in the cold. I used to run heat, cold, rain, or snow outside. I’ve become not only soft with running outside but have forgotten how to layer properly. My problem is that I run hot, but I also hate to start off cold. This means recently that I am much to overdressed once I start running. Also doesn’t help that I may or may not be bigger which means my winter tights are tighter than they used to be. Work in progress as I need to figure this out.

I also am very lucky to have turned my garage into a mini workout area complete with equipment including a treadmill. I still hate running on a treadmill as I find it absolutely boring, but I am figuring that out. Running and looking at garage door going nowhere is super boring. I’ve started streaming shows which passes the time.

One big thing that I noticed about running on the treadmill is I get different readouts from the treadmill to my Garmin watch. Not sure which is more accurate, but I have been going by my Garmin. Somehow I feel the treadmill is tuned into my body and while I may be running on the hamster wheel it is registering that. I need to do some research to see what is what but sfor now I will go by my Garmin.

So first month of the year had a strong start. Been eating better. Been excersicing regularly. Been doing what I need to do. Would be nice if all that hard work paid off with a pound or two leaving town but guess you can’t have everything. So for now I will take being able to do what I’m doing and feeling good about it.