December Training

me laughing

Already a week into a New Year and I have yet to sit back and look at December’s training. Usually, I even toy with writing a December log. We are already into the New Year, I’ve reflected upon 2018 in both running and blogging…who cares about December.

But I do. I use my logs to look back and see where I was so it’s important I suppose.

Miles Run: Around 200

Range of Paces: 6:26-11:30-untimed

Longest Run: 14

Shortest Run: 2

Rest Days: 7

Races:

Race 13.1 1:30.58

Christmas Classic 5 miler (32:46)

Lonely 5ks (20:00.3, 19:57.3.)*Not actual races

Thoughts:

December was busy, and I quickly realized I was burning my candle at both ends. I chose to rest and sleep a lot more, and I don’t regret it.  While I took a few more rest days than anticipated in December, it was a busy month and I needed rest more than easy miles.

Races:

My favorite race was the Christmas Classic 5 Miler and my husband, and I had a great time in Bethlehem. The Race 13.1 in Baltimore was my 50th half marathon, but it wasn’t the best put together race and dangerous.

Workouts:

I ran seven workouts in December including two 5ks.

The third weekend of December, the 5k I wanted was canceled due to weather. It was raining and 40 degrees, but I think the course flooded out. I wasn’t that bummed, and I decided to make the best of it and run my 5k in my neighborhood. I surprised myself and ran a 20:00.3. The next weekend I did the same thing and ran a 19:57. I’ll probably run more in January just to give me something to stay motivated. I’ve run a lot of actual 5ks alone, so it wasn’t the “hardest thing ever” to motivate myself to run a hard 20 minutes.

Getting Back into Shape:

Getting back into shape after time off has been tough. I’m not coming back from anything and realistically I never was. I didn’t take that much time off after the marathon (2 weeks).

As I’ve told many people, I never felt as though I got into peak shape for New York. I ran a 1:27 half when my PR is 1:22. I want to get back to the 1:22 shape, as well as 18: XX shape for a 5k, but it’s coming much slower this time around. I’ve had more training bumps.  Not due to injury but due to life.  While I’m proud of 1:27, it’s still 5 minutes slower than I ran early last year.

My goal for January is to log quality miles and go from there. I want to come back strong for Spring and races like Shamrock, Atlantic City Half, and Broad Street, but I have quite a bit of work to do for that.

Anyway, it was a good December as far as life goes. I trained when I could but didn’t choose training over seeing family, friends, or even resting.

Posts from the Month:

2018 in Running

Treadmills are Ok.

50 Half Marathons Later

Fitbit Ionic Review

Why Internet Shoe Reviews are Worthless

Walking Merrill Creek Reservoir

Questions for you:

How was your training in December?

Do you have any goals for 2019? 

2 Comments

  1. 1:22 is really moving! I hope you can get back to that. So many of us seem bad at choosing rest, but I’m glad you were able to. It will pay off. 🙂

    My December was awesome. I ran the Rehoboth Beach marathon and didn’t care about my pace at all. I was just so happy to be running a marathon after such a huge injury.

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