January

I had a few unexpected road bumps in the month of January, but I've been making do and by volume it was one of my highest of the last few years.

My time on the bike was good at the very start of the month, but then faded in the middle and right now I've been more focused on running as it is - so I'm not completely concerned.

Running

For January I ran 246 miles. The most I've run in any other month since at least 2003 has been 206. My last 5 weeks have been 55, 55.5, 58.5, 62 and 58.5. Not bad considering I probably have only had 5 weeks over 50 in the last couple of years. I haven't been running very hard, I've been struggling enough with just the volume. This usually comes on 5 days of running so my average length run has bumped from the 7-8 range to 10-12.

We've also been handling the cold pretty well. As I've remarked to everyone, this is definitely the toughest winter since 2003. We had a lot more snow then, but it was easier to run on the snow than it is to run on ice. Patrick Reaves put it well when he described it like creme brulee. Ice on the top, snow underneath. Sucks for running.

This was true yesterday when Ben, Brennan and I took off for a 17 mile run from Ben's. I ran down from my house (3.5) wearing my super awesome Venom spider suit. First things first, I had to handle a hostage situation up at Penn Station. Upon leaving Penn Station, we noticed blood drops on the sidewalk. They last until Charles Village, so about a mile. We made it up pretty far on Charles, normally I'm only riding my bike up around there - I've never run that far. We descended into Robert E Lee Park on some real treacherous ice. That was where hostage situation: the sequel took place.

I was feeling better, and made it up the hills of Mt. Wash pretty well and into Pimlico before just really starting to feel terrible. Ben began to open it up, so I let him and Brennan go and just shuffled home through Druid Hill Park and down Fallsway. Then I noticed the blood again and it led into Ben's apt building!! It was crazy, like a CSI episode. Ultimately it was just under 21 miles, my longest since, well, the marathon. I'm pleased with just making it through.

Swimming

January yielded 36,000 meters. I was a little disappointed that I didn't swim more but I had a few positives. This past week was promising, on Friday I put in a 2500m straight swim. That's the most I've ever swam, and it felt alright. My goal is to build up to the hour+ range over the next few months. This was about 42 minutes. Not blazing, but I started around 1:43/100m and finished around 1:35/

Riding

Like I said, a pretty low month. Factors NOT helping were the weather, which has been very cold, and the past week the roads weren't great; no car - not having a car means I haven't gone out to Frederick yet; running more than I usually do.

So in terms of mileage it was only 210 for the month. Obviously that should be a WEEK, but like I said, I'll get that back fast.

Goals for February

I've got two races this month. The first is this Saturday, a 12k cross country race in which I will most certainly get my ass beat. I'm looking forward to that. Then in a few weeks we have Club Challenge, our loathsome 10 mile race in Columbia. I think I'm going to decrease my running mileage a little bit, and run a little faster perhaps over the next few weeks. I also want to make sure I ride some more, so I'm putting that on the front burner.

As far as swimming goes, I'm just going to keep doing what I do. It seems to work alright, and I seem to be ahead of where I was last January (32,100m swim; 291 miles on the bike; 168 miles running).

In other news, here is my website of the week: Snuggie Sightings