5k Season

After A1A, I took a much-needed break. It felt really good to focus on track & field and push my own "training" to the side. I've done a couple challenging runs in the last few weeks, mostly playing with speed work again and running the bridge, but I haven't actually been running.

Stretching after running the bridge for the first time in AGES!

That changes now. Track & field has a few more weeks to go; our first regional meet is Wednesday, the second is next Tuesday, and depending on if any of our kiddos qualify for championships, the season may end there.

Monday I finally laced up and went for a run in the neighborhood where I do most of my training. After A1A I was bored with it, but it felt really nice to be back on familiar ground. My legs and body felt good, too, despite the warmer weather; I think I am just ready to be back.

So you know what that means! Springtime in Florida isn't exactly race season, but there are still a handful of half marathons and 10ks out there well into May. I prefer to stick to short distances once it starts to heat up, though.

I've already signed up for the Fast and the Furriest 5k (which I've run a few times in the past (last year with Shelagh and Allison) and the Sup 'n Run 5k, which I've also run a few times. As usual, Matt will be supping and running that one. Shelagh is running F&F again, too.

I'm looking forward to having some familiar 5ks on my calendar. I think it's what I need  right now. I'd like to find a third between the two (F&F is coming up in early April and S&R is in late May). I'll keep my eyes open for one.

I may even consider planning a 2019-2020 race calendar. Right now I'm still in a different mindset when it comes to running/training/racing, the result of my surgeries and time off, but I'd like to be in good enough running shape that if a longer fall race piques my interest I can jump in and run it without too much hassle.

I guess we'll see! For now, I've got these two to keep me occupied.

ABK

The End of an Era

I started using Daily Mile back in January of 2010. I'm not sure why I started; I'm sure a friend told me to join, since the Nike+ platform (which I was using at the time) was less about the social aspect of sharing run stats and was more about basic logging. This week, I logged in to update my track and field workouts from the week and saw this message:

To be honest, now that I'm on Strava and Garmin Connect, I'm not having the same existential crisis over this as I did when I migrated away from Nike+. I have plenty of logs to track my runs and plenty of platforms to keep up with my fellow runners. Also, once I "lost" my data on my oldest runs, I kind of got over it; I realize now that just because my first few years of running aren't recorded, it doesn't mean they didn't happen.

The one thing I'm going to miss is the shoe-mileage tracking. I absolutely hate using Strava and Garmin to track shoe mileage. On both platforms, when you add a shoe, there's no option to add how many miles are already on it - all shoes start at zero; on Garmin, I can't seem to add shoes/miles via the app, and I rarely log in on the computer because the site is slow and annoying.

Also, the Strava widget I use in my sidebar hasn't updated in over a week, so A1A is missing. I'm irked.

Anyway, I've decided to just start a spreadsheet. It will make keeping track of shoe mileage easy and it's a platform that will never be shut down.

Now I can just add the distance in to the appropriate column and sum up the total mileage at the bottom. It's not the prettiest or most intricate tracking log, but it'll do!

Speaking of track and field workouts, I haven't actually run since A1A, but we did a couple tough circuits that honestly have left me hurting. I know I won't be able to run on t&f coaching days (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays), but I hope to find the energy to run Mondays and Saturdays during season.

I guess with DM going away, I'll need to figure out another place to log non-running workouts when I feel like doing so. Maybe that's what this blog will go back to being about! Everything comes full circle.

ABK