I can’t say I did much the past couple of weeks prior to this weekend. Labor Day came and went, and the weather turned chilly. The first red leaves began to show on the trees as the realization slowly dawned that summer is fairly well over. I rarely welcome this time of year because it signals the end of everything I love: blue skies and greenery, a garden full of vegetables, and endless roads stretching into the distance beckoning me to come and run them. Here in Northern Illinois the cold months can be quite brutal so at the first hint of winter’s return, a bit of heaviness descends on my mood and I need to make a mental adjustment.
That’s pretty much what happened the last two weeks. I kept up with running, stretching and cardio but had to do more yoga to keep myself peaceful, and thus neglected the weight training I should have done. My right shoulder is still in healing mode anyway, although it is about 95% better now, so it was probably the right thing to do.
Not quite able to get the heart rate up that day. Still bummed and too tired.
The week of September 10 was also taper time for my first fall half, which I will fully report about next time, the Rock’n’Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon. I’m waiting for all the stats and pictures to show up since it just happened yesterday, and they’re not available yet.
Foggy morning last Wednesday!
My mood is getting better because I’ve begun meditating in the morning with the Headspace app, and I have also started preparing for my winter training project. Last year, I did a 5 month muscle building program from November to April and got really strong. This year, I went a little crazy and signed up for a Spartan Sprint in March which I will be training for starting in November. It is going to require a lot of work because I have never done about half the stuff they will expect of me, so I’m really in over my head again. But that’s okay. Planning something new, exciting and slightly scary will help chase away the winter blues by giving me a new goal to strive for instead of moping around and eating while we’re all snowbound for months up here.
And that’s about the latest from these parts at this moment. I’ll come back with race reports for the Fetch & Pounce 5k in New Jersey on Saturday as well as the Rock’n’Roll Philadelphia half-marathon on Sunday of this past weekend after all the photos are available.
In the meantime, Live Long and Prosper.
Boldly running where I've never gone before 
Dude, those are awesome goals. I would love to do a Sparton. They just had one here in WV last month but of course I was in no condition to do it. My plan is to start back to running within the next week with the program that got me started…back to the basics!
Thanks! Job One will be to lose the “stress fat” I’ve put on this summer by all the crazy stuff happening in this country, and then I’ll be getting very very basic too with all that swinging from rings and climbing walls stuff.
Oh I so totally understand that! I had to stop watching the news. I’ve noticed I’ve been stress eating too