Running With La Nina

Wow, the weather over the last week or so has been absolutely fantastic for this time of year.  The temps during my last five runs have been 25, 35, 30, 26, and 33.  All of those are above zero.  Amazing for late January/early February.  Most of our snow is gone.  We've actually had several days of sunshine.  I know the ski resorts and snowmobilers are hating this weather, but I'm loving it.  It's so much more pleasant to head out when it's not -5 and blowing snow.

Last week was 41.9 miles.  Had I known I was so close to 42 I would have run around the block one more time or something.  Oh well.  That's life, eh?  Actually, that was a personal best for me for weekly mileage, so I'm really happy about that.

Some highlights from the past week were the waxing moon.  It was nice and bright in the sky in the evening.  On Saturday afternoon there were snowmobiles drag racing on the ice.  Those things are fast!  It wasn't just a couple of Bubbas out there fooling around either.  These were real racing teams actually racing.  My running route took me around the back of the pit area and there is more to drag racing snowmobiles than first meets the eye.

Another highlight is that I hit my goal weight of 150 pounds.  Hooray!  I haven't seen that weight since I was a freshman in high school.  The challenge now is to effectively maintain without going too low or too high.  Plus or minus a pound or two is fine.  More than that will be a problem.

Looking forward I plan to continue working on my base through February.  Sometime in March I'm hoping the snow is gone from the trails and I can get back into the woods.  If not, I will start incorporating some hill repeats into my running routine.  While I am a midpacker when it comes to trail racing, I intend to be a front of the midpacker and to do that I need to work on running hills efficiently.

Hope you all are having a great week!