Thinking about next year still........

I ran with Karyn today along the river bottom, not a great weather day but my guess is it will be about as good as it gets until March, that is not a pleasant thought.

We decided to shorten up our normal run to about a 9 mile run. Karyn is nursing a muscle strain and I my foot. We entered the bottoms back behind the Sibley house (not too far from the Mendota Bridge) and ran past the 494 bridge a mile or so until it got real muddy and then we turned around.

This was my first run since Murphy and I was pleasantly surprised. The legs felt good, the foot is sore. It felt better before I ran so I will need to continue to ice it and wrap it. I could take time off but I need to run for a number of reasons.

The first reason is my mental health, running is a release. I always feel better after a run. The second reason is my weight, if I don't run, I might gain weight. Since I haven't really worked on it, my plan is to focus on it with a goal of losing another 11 pounds by March 1. Not an overly aggressive goal but a realization of my holiday/winter malaise that normally gets me off track. Why 11 pounds because that will put me under 200, which would be a good place to be once again. I have been at 210 since the end of summer which is good and bad. Good I didn't gain, bad I didn't work to lose. The third reason to run is I am about 85% committed to McNaughton as my first 50 miler. Why 85%, well I went to their website and I didn't see an entry form or dates to enter and the way it works for me is that until the entry is sent in, I can't move it to my committed category with the exception of Surf the Murph, if Les and Cindy bring it back for next year, I will be there.

So tomorrow I will run again as I am now committed to officially start my training for next year, the only question is which will be my first event and exactly what is my training program, always a few things to work on..............