Last Tuesday morning, pre-dawn, I peered out the window at the solid blanket of rain-soaked snow that had fallen overnight. We had returned from our Holiday travels a day early due to the forecast of wintry weather and slippery highways, so I know it was coming. But I still had a visceral reaction, an emotional kick in the stomach, a Pavlovian reaction of profound despair and dread of the New England winter to come. This was compounded later in the morning as I struggled to remove the wretchedly heavy slush from the sidewalk and driveway. Mr. P broke his right pinky finger during our Holiday, which means I’m on the hook for a lot more domestic duties, like shoveling textbook New England “heart attack snow”. Since he can’t fit a glove or mitten over his splint, this also effectively means he can’t spend prolonged periods of time outside for the next 4-6 weeks. Just in time for snow season!
At least Little Boy experienced profound child-like joy in making a snowman as freezing rain slowly soaked us. It was hard to believe that, only four days before, Mr. P and I were sweating through a steamy humid tempo run in Pennsylvania. With none of our fingers broken.
The snow has since half-melted, with just enough pockets of ice lingering to make a below-freezing morning run rather treacherous. Conditions on the trails are not much better. This is what I’ve been waiting for: the off-season, treadmill season, focus on pure speed and not elevation, hills, endurance, and terrain. Yet, the timing is a little daunting, as today I “won” entry in the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 miler in July. This is my big goal race for the year (if I hadn’t won the lottery, I would have signed up for the Vermont 100 again). The TRT 100 is a relatively tough 100-miler that will require a lot of fast-hiking practice. Though the race is 7 months out, I’m already feeling a bit frenzied in my need to train for it. Couple this frenzy with the obligatory “New Year’s” focus on self-betterment, and I’m feeling pretty anti-snow this year.
I actually had already half-entered my off-season in November. In fact, I weighed myself on our digital scale around Thanksgiving and saw, to my horror, 145 pounds! About 12 pounds heavier than I weighed in the summer. I told myself that some of it was muscle (I was swimming and weight lifting, and contrary to what they say about women not easily gaining muscle mass, I bulk up instantaneously) but I knew most of the weight was my almond-butter-from-the-jar habit and beers-after-work habit coupled with decreased mileage and general lower levels of activity (i.e., not walking to Little Boy’s school for afternoon pick-up, not spending hours romping around the playground, etc). So I gave up the almond butter habit and cut down on beer. I am already down to 140 pounds, which is a pretty good off-season weight. Besides, most of it is muscle 😉
So I don’t need to make resolutions about running, exercise, eating or weight, because those are things that I am motivated do anyway. There are two things, however, that I used to “naturally” be motivated to do that I no longer do… and that’s reading and writing. The luxury of being able to sit down with a book — a bonafide book, made from paper — had alluded me for the past, oh, five years. Also eroded is my ability to consistently write and blog. A lot of factors have contributed to this: the joys of parenting and domestic servitude, slowly grinding my way through Grad school to get my Masters, an exponential increase in responsibilities at work, and, of course, ultra running. But it is up to me to combat it. I have made no specific measurements of success around this resolution. I could say “Blog twice a week” or “finish a book every month,” but I don’t think that’s a valid way to make something become, once again, natural. And if I have to choose between spending time with Little Boy or writing a blog post, well, it’s obvious what I will choose. But I can certainly commit to maximizing my time in other areas so I can make incremental steps towards more writing and more reading.
So here’s to a more verbose 2016!
