Every time I blog, I promise to post more regularly… and yet, this last gap between posts may be the biggest yet. I thought this school year would be better than last, now that I’ve been at my “new” school for over a year, but I’m still often drowning in a sea of grading, planning, and most of all, meetings. So. Many. Meetings.

That’s all, of course, just an excuse for not writing more. I need to prioritize it. But I started this post not to make excuses, but to update whatever readers I may still have, so here goes:

Running

Slowly but surely, I’m feeling more like myself all the time. I’m back to 5-6 runs a week and got up to a 14-mile long run last weekend. I’m even running a half marathon tomorrow. When I got injured (read: finally admitted I was injured) and couldn’t run the Skirt Sports 13er, 3W Races let me transfer to another of their events: the Westy Half in Westminster. My recovery has been slow, and I’ve done no speed work for over a year, so my time will not be fast (for me), but that’s okay. It’ll feel good just to be out there.

I’ve been working with Jennifer Watson of Watson Wellness in Fort Collins, and I credit her with getting my running back to almost-normal. If you’re looking for a physical therapist in Northern Colorado, I can’t recommend her highly enough. I’m still seeing her once a month or so, and she’s helping to keep my body functioning.

I also need to acknoweldge that my strength training has been lacking. I think I need to rejoin a gym, as I’m just not doing the at-home stuff I should be, and even when I do, I don’t have heavy weights at home. Especially when it’s cold, I tend to run, come home, and get straight into the warm shower. I’m thinking that if I pay for a gym membership, I’ll be more likely to make myself go lift some weights. I’m looking at Anytime Fitness, since there’s one five minutes from my school and one being built about 1.5 miles from my house. Anybody know about Anytime? Are they worth the money?

Races

I’m starting to feel healthy enough to make longer-term racing plans. I’d really like to BQ again and head back to Boston in 2019, which means I need to run a spring marathon. I’m thinking Colfax in May; I did it once, years ago, liked it, and said I’d be back, but I haven’t run it since. My concern is the time that marathon training takes, which sounds crazy. I used to teach, train hard, and go to grad school. I don’t know if I’m really that much busier at this job or if I’m just out of the habit of scheduling long training sessions. I guess I’ll just have to make it a priority and get ‘er done!

Other races I’m thinking about this winter/spring are the Yeti Chase in January, the Loveland Sweetheart Classic in February, and the Horsetooth Half in April. Those are all tentative, and we’ll just have to see how my fitness, budget, and calendar all work together to make them happen!

Life

Nothing all that exciting has been happening life-wise, just teaching and boring adult-type stuff. A couple of highlights, though:

• Volunteering with Running Start.

  

  

  This charity pairs women who want to start running but have significant obstacles with women who have been running for a while, and they train for a 5k together. While my beginner got injured and couldn’t run the CSU Homecoming 5k (the graduation race), I still went, ran a bit with every pair, cheered at the end, and left proud and inspired. I definitely want to volunteer with Running Start again next year!

• Fall hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park
  
  A few weeks ago, on Jordan’s birthday weekend, we spent a day hiking in Rocky and playing in Estes Park. The colors were popping, the elk were bugling, and the day was beautiful; we thoroughly enjoyed our much-needed day away.

And that’s my life lately in a nutshell, I think. I will, for real this time, have some posts up more regularly; I’ve got a pair of tights I need to review and will have a race report up for Westy.

It’s good to be back in the blog world. Let me know what you’ve been up to!