Baby Steps

After abandoning marathon training for the spring, I realized that if I ever wanted to force myself to get running and working out again, I needed a goal race. Because I have my eventual sights set on the Tussey Mountainback Ultramarathon at some point in the next few years, I thought that I would try and run at least a few of the "teaser" races that are held leading up to that race in October. The races are called Tussey Teasers, and there are five of them in all. The first is on March 10th and is a 10K race. An 11-miler follows on April 7th, and then another 10K on May 6th. There are two 10.6 mile races in June that close out the series. Each of the races takes place on a different part of the course for the Ultramarathon so that if you run all five of them, you will have run a significant portion of the Ultra course. I found out about the Tussey Teaser races when I came across a calendar that lists all of the races in the Nittany Valley.

http://www.nvrun.com/calendar.html

Right now I am shooting for the 10K in March. I just started running again this week, which gives me five weeks to get into half-decent shape for the race. I certainly won't be running the race with maximal effort, but will do my best. It's amazing how much different your body feels even after one workout. It's like your muscles wake up and say, "Oh yeah, I remember doing this before." I want to shed about ten pounds, pump back up at the gym a few times a week, and get back into the groove of running. I'm not overly concerned about running long distances right now, but getting back to a good base of conditioning. There is plenty of time for the longer stuff later.

My run yesterday was done on the treadmill in the gym at work. It is just too cold right now for me to want to run outside. The high yesterday was like 15 degrees, and felt much colder with the wind chill. I have warm clothes (GoreTex and such) that would make those temps bearable, but I'm just not into that right now. I'm afraid that the frigid weather will extinguish my fledgling motivation. I ran three miles and used a random program on the treadmill that threw in "hills" of varying inclines and duration. I actually got a really good workout. The hills took away some of the monotony of running on the treadmill and made for a challenging run. My HR was a little high at times, but not bad considering that I only ran one time the entire month of January.

I am going to the gym today to hit the weights and I'm still sore from Sunday's workout -- nice! I love that! Maybe it's the masochist in me, but I love working out when my muscles are still sore from my previous workout. There's something so satisfying about punishing yourself sometimes. The other interesting thing is that I can always tell when I'm getting into good shape because I am never sore after any of my workouts. Even the day or two after a 20-mile run, an intense speed session at the track, or a heavy weight workout, I'm not the least bit sore. That's a good feeling as well. I definitely want to be back to a good, solid base of conditioning when the weather turns warmer. I don't want to be sucking wind at the beginning of the race season.