Lame-o Blogger

I've been off the radar lately, but with a long list of good excuses. Right after the first of the year, we sold our NC house, then shot right up to PA and put a contract on a house, and ever since I have been buried in moving/mortgage/home inspection details. When a few minutes comes up free, I hit the tready or computrainer, rather than blog. Here's a quick update:

We close on our NC house 1/30
We close on our PA house 2/3
The house we bought is a 4 mile run from my new lab, hooray!

See Becca's blog for all moving related details, she is so much better at keeping this thing up than me!

As for training, the IMCDA plan was delayed 1 week since we were out of town, and then on the return trip I got an awful case of food poisoning. It was the first time in about 5 or 10 years I can remember vomiting in a non-alcohol related context. So, I've started up training as of last Sunday, but I am easing into it for sure. This week and the next two will be about getting in as many aerobic hours as my schedule allows, which right now is about 6. And I am putting off all swimming for the first 4 weeks of the plan. My rationalization is that if I swim 10,000 yards per week between now and IMCDA I will probably swim in the :55 range, and if I swim 0 yards per week between now and then, I'll probably swim a 1:05. That kind of return on investment isn't worth it right now, I am better off computraining or running if I get a few minutes.

Speaking of which, the computrainer just became free. Gotta go!

Training to train, Christmas, and New Years

The past couple weeks I have been doing what I call "training to train." I am so excited by the possibility of run-commuting when we move to Pennsylvania that I want to start ASAP, and I thought it might be a good idea to get my body ready. The houses we are looking at are anywhere from 4 to 6.5 miles from my work by foot, so if I were to run 5 days a week, that's anywhere from 40-65 miles per week. Yikes!! I've never put in those kind of miles week in week out, at least not recently. My best week ever was 57 miles in the summer of 2006, but it was a freak week, surrounded by 20mi weeks. And my best streak of high run mileage was in December 07 when I did 227mi in 5 weeks (ave=45/wk). So, to get ready for the run commute lifestyle I have started a run frequency training plan. It's quite simple: two weeks ago I did 5 runs, last week I did 6, this week I will do 7, etc. I haven't cracked 30mi/wk since they've all been short (4-6mi each). But the idea is to ease into it, slowly adding one 4 mile run per week, which is equivalent to a one-way commute. We'll see where I am when its time to move, but I am hoping to be prepared (if not able, weather permitting, to run at least 4 days per week.

Other than that, not much going on for the training front. The big plan starts January 5. I've got my spreadsheets ready, as usual. Becca and I managed to dip in the pool yesterday, just so Elena could get some socialization time with other kids in the gym's nursery. I usually wont go swimming in the off season unless forced, so this was good for me. I only did 800m, and after 250 I felt like my shoulders were going to fall off. I felt better by the end, but its going to take some work to get back to 3000m workouts.

Here I am dressed in "the dorkiest running outfit ever" as Becca said of my attire on our Christmas Day run.



Also, my girls left for CT today. I'll be a pseudo-bachelor for 4 days. Here's Elena in the airplane.