Before I get into running details, I gotta come clean on the calorie counting. There was none over the past two days. And I'm OK with that - it was Thanksgiving, right? I actually don't think I fared too bad on Thursday. I started out by burning 700 calories during the 10K (and probably 100 more doing 99 push-ups) and then didn't eat too much until the evening feast (where I surely made up for lost time). Yesterday was the usual festive Shabbat dinner, Thanksgiving style :-) I'm sure that the past two days threw me off a bit, but I'll go back to the calorie counting and everything will be fine.
This morning I went out for an easy Shabbat morning run. The run was the longest I have done in a few weeks - 7.3 miles - but definitely not a "long run" by standards set earlier in the year. I had contemplated going longer, but that would have meant leaving the house earlier (and thus getting out of bed earlier) and carrying water with me - two things I did not want to do today. So I settled on the 7 miler instead of the 9 or 10.
I checked the weather this morning before leaving the house. 26 degrees. BRRRRRR. At least I didn't have to wait around for 45 minutes before running, like I did at Thursday morning's race. There was virtually no wind, which made it bearable. As usual, the first two miles were tough and cold, however, I was comfortable the rest of the way. Also as usual, the cold weather made me run a bit faster than I wanted - I guess this is how my body responds as it wants to warm up faster. My average HR was 156 over the 1:18:35.
The 7.3 miles brought my weekly total to 21.9 miles. My yearly total is now 899 miles! This is way more than I have ever run in a year - which is good news. On the flip side, I have fallen behind the 1,000 mile "pace bunny" due to the week and a half I didn't run with bronchitis and the "ick-ies". I'm about 13 miles behind pace to finish off with 1,000 miles, which means I'll have to average around 24 miles per week to get to the 1,000 mile goal by December 31. It is definitely within my reach - I just need to really want it.
To get there, I will really need to make my weekend long runs longer - which means waking up earlier, wearing my water belt and running in the dark for a portion of my run. I may also have to have some more flexibility due to the weather getting crappier by the day. And some of these runs may have to be on the dreadmill.
As much as I would really like to reach this goal, if I don't make it I won't be depressed. I believe that I'll be close to this mileage again in future years - especially in those where I'll run another marathon. Plus, the main goal for me this year was to finish a 26.2 mile race - and that has been achieved!
So, I won't be pushing myself through sickness and fatigue to reach 1,000. However, if I'm at 990 miles by December 30, you can bet I'll go out for a 10 miler on December 31!
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