Hello Feb & Taper! 1 goal down

First, here's how Jan 2014 played out:

Swim: 6500 m, 2 swims
Bike: 45 miles, 3 rides
Run: 122 miles, 14 runs
Strength: 13 times
Yoga: 25 times

No racing in Jan, but I was going Long and Lean in 2014. 122 miles of running is a great way to start off the year. I'm running 3-5 days a week. There was some unexpected rest days thanks to all of the snow that we've had. I should be swimming and biking once a week at least but we had a lot of swim practices cancelled this month. The strength work and yoga are dead on target.

Also, I knocked off my first goal for the year!! This last week was my first ever 50 mile running week. Saturday was Feb 1, so it's not in Jan's totals. But I put up three separate 10 mile runs during the week, and finished off the 50 with a 20 miler on Saturday.  One of my stated goals for 2014 was to knock off a 50 mile week. Even in ultramarathon training back in 2012 I never got over 40 miles a week. So checking that off was really cool.

I could totally get used to the 10 mile runs. Now it seems like the first 5 miles just fly by without even breaking a sweat. Overloading distance really builds muscular endurance, and I can totally see why fast people use 70 to 100 mile weeks to build speed. I was just posting about making progress in yoga last week, I hope that this will bring some progress on my speedwork as well. I've been stuck at a basic 8 minute mile for a few years now and hoping that's not a peak.

This was also my last 20 mile run before the marathons. The next few weeks look like this:

Recovery week
Taper/Myrtle Beach Marathon
Recovery week
Taper/Umstead Trail Marathon

So that's going to be fun.  Here's to a great February!

And on the flip side of that coin, Philip Seymore Hoffman died today. He was always one of my favorite actors.  If this is what 2014 has in store, let's just sell off everything now, clench every dime you can get in your cold fists, and hold up in the woods. Somebody call me when it's 2015.