AM - 6 miles.
PM - 5 miles.
Meteorological winter starts today - a good time to evaluate something I wrote four months ago: "I want to approach this fall with the goal of being in excellent condition for the 2016 ski season."
I've only been out skiing a few times so far, but I'd say I nailed it. My body feels great - strong, responsive, athletic. I'm healthy and feel energetic while running and doing pretty much anything else. I don't feel like I have any movement restrictions (compared to a year ago, that is a BIG deal!). Getting in some 5K races over the past two months and being able to run faster again without worrying about injuries has been a really nice bonus. Even if the events are low-key, I still love putting on my racing flats and competing.
I bet that if I buckled down and started more focused "training" I could get myself into 2011-2014 racing shape in 2-3 months. Not going to happen, though. Physically I might be there, but emotionally I'm not feeling it yet. I simply don't want to create that kind of emphasis on racing over the winter months. I've done that in the past, and don't feel like I need to put in that kind of effort again right now. I'm having too much fun with the current approach to life... and I want to ski even more than last year, so nothing goes on the calendar that would detract from that. Andrea and I both feel the same way - we are happy to be able to run faster again, but in no hurry to push it any harder. "Have fun doing whatever you want to do and see what happens" seems like a good plan.
So I guess my "running goal" moving forward is to find a way to maintain my current running fitness over the winter. I'm sure my overall endurance will improve as the backcountry ski days build up, and throwing in some unstructured faster running from time to time will keep my legs snappy (good for my general health too). Honestly if I can run a halfway decent 5K/10K at any given time, that's plenty good for now and makes me happy.
Deep down I know I have another fast marathon in me, but it feels more like a fall pursuit at the moment... after 8 months of skiing, wedding, climbing a bunch of mountains in Europe, etc... Priorities :-)
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