Christmas Wrap

Wrapping up the year, that is...though I have plenty of the other sort to do, too.

While I'd rather be out playing here.

With 8 runs in the last 6 days I'm off to a decent start in the 100 runs in 100 days, and while I'm not planning any huge mileage over the holiday week I hope to get a couple of short double days in. I don't give a rat's patootie about my place in the standings; it's simply a tool to help me get out the door every day (well, except Fridays) - I often find that no matter how much I DO. NOT. WANT. when looking out the window of my kitchen/office, I actually feel great when I get out there.

Like last night's snow squall run.
It was actually much nicer than I expected, so I ended up running a little longer.

Yes, even the second run of the day. Especially the second run of the day. It frequently ends up feeling better than the first, which was definitely the case on Saturday.

For the second time ever, I ran down to the farmers' market on a cold, grey winter morning. The paved section of multi-use trail along Blair Road was a nightmare of thick, chunky snow that thoroughly kicked my arse - my idea of keeping it to an easy aerobic effort to avoid sweating too much flew out the window when I encountered this energy-sucking muck.

My lone bit of relief was a single fatbike track that appeared intermittently..

The rest of the trail was quite beautiful in the new-fallen snow, though, and I made decent time on the trails themselves.

Even if I stopped to do a bit of dorky photography..

We picked up our groceries for the week and placed a few Christmas orders with the vendors, then for the very first time ever I ran home from the market as well. I took a different route; the sun came out; and there were trumpeter and tundra swans feeding in the Grand River as I trotted up the Linear Trail.

I've only seen swans about 3 other times in Waterloo Region.

I finished by powering and puffing my way up Shantz Hill for a little over 21km on the day, actually having moved faster on the way home despite it being mostly uphill. While it's not a good idea to split up your long run into chunks very often, I'm pretty sure this season has given me a decent dose of the physiological adaptations that come about when running for 4+ hours at a time, and some higher intensity work now and then boosts fitness in a big way.

That should help build on the work I've done in 2017. I had a pretty good year here: I won't make any schmancy mileage numbers by the time the clock runs out (I'll be somewhere over 2,900km, which will put me at 300km more than any other year - it seems like everyone runs more distance than me), but I overcame some early-season injury woes, did just under 500km of racing (with some unexpectedly good results), and went on a few trips that I truly enjoyed. I got to share it all with my wonderful, hard-working and incredibly patient partner in crime, and I'm heading into 2018 with ambitious plans and a great new series of races to which I am greatly looking forward. That beats chasing spreadsheets in my books!

As it's doubtful I'll have time for another post before this old year gives way to the new, I'll wish you all a very merry Christmas season and joyous solstice. Thank you for tolerating my inane blitherings, blatant narcissism, incessant whining, and childish crayon art - I'd resolve to do better in the new year, but we all know that won't happen.

Just more of this.

So, until we meet again - may your days be merry and your feet be light!