Happy New Year!

Started the new year with some seriously great orange sweet rolls. Um, yeah, I know, I need to watch that stuff. But I also need to be realistic. Yeah, my weight is up a little again. I do seem to fight this last 5 lbs over & over, but I think it's mostly because I have a wicked sweet tooth. The good news is that I'm quite optimistic that I can get it back off again, rather than being depressed about it. The scale said 149 this morning.

The Canyonlands 1/2 Marathon is my next race, on March 20th, and I want to be back at 145 by then. I'd also like to have a shot at a new PR, but that depends on how my foot is doing. It's also really not a PR sort of course, but considering that my last PR for the 1/2 was set there last year, I think it's not unreasonable. But also not a lock.

So, this week has been pretty good. I think my recovery is progressing well. After the 8 miles Christmas Day (in two separate 4-mile walks), I took 2 days off racewalking. Saturday I did the bike & elliptical at the gym for an hour, and Sunday I went snowshoeing with my mom. Monday I decided to do 30 min on the treadmill, for 2.8 miles (more on this later), along with 30 min of biking, and 30 min of elliptical. Tuesday I decided to do 2.2 miles on the treadmill to make 5 miles total between Monday & Tuesday. I did that in about 24 min or so, and then biked for 40 min. In general, the treadmill went better than last week - I was able to do 5.5 mph (about an 11-min mile) fairly comfortably. However, on Tuesday night, after a long day at work on my feet, my left foot was a bit achy. It didn't ache in the joint where I had the pain previously, but rather in the plantar fascia right behind the ball of my foot. Not sure what it was about, but on Wednesday I skipped any thought of RW and did the bike & the elliptical. It felt fine, but hey, I wasn't going to take any chances. Thursday I decided to RW for 3 miles (took 33 min) on the treadmill, followed by a 1-hr swim with some friends.

More on Tuesday's workout: I actually did a little speed work! I am hoping that was not the cause of my pain, in retrospect. But it could have been. Still, things are fine now, so we'll just keep watching it and see how it does. Anyway, on Tuesday I was bored at the prospect of 30 min straight on the 'mill, so I opted for a 10-min warmup followed by 4 x 2 min at 6.5 mph. That got my HR up to about 160 on each one, and it felt great. I rested 1 min in between each with some slower walking, and then cooled it down. Felt good to do some speed work, but I kept it to 4 intervals because I didn't want to push things.

Total for the week: 16 miles. This week I think maybe 18 miles if my foot is still feeling OK.

So back to today...I thought I was ready to try 10K racewalking, the longest since my 2-month layoff. I got out there a couple hours after the aforementioned sweet rolls. It was overcast but relatively warm (mid-30s?), and I did a very hilly route in 1:10:13 for 11:18/mile. Yeah, it was slow, but considering the hills and my stomachache from the rolls, I think it was an acceptable effort. It was one of those days when it doesn't come easily, but you just push through it, and later you are glad you did. It's great to be back.

Happy New Year!