Jumping January, another edition

January 2023 in review!

Total mileage for the month: 308.9

• Dec. 26-Jan. 1: 68
• Jan. 2-8: 74.5
• Jan. 9-15: 77.4
• Jan. 16-22: 82.5
• Jan. 23-29: 60.1
• Jan. 30-Feb. 5: 73

#jumpingjanuary

Races:

• None this month

Workouts:

• Jan. 11: 3 mile threshold by effort (6:15, 6:14, 6:10), jog to track, 4 x 200 m faster (10.6 miles total). My hamstrings have been struggling to come back from my 6-hour, I think partially because I ran it so soon after having COVID (inflammation city!). I wasn't sure if they'd let me workout quite yet, but decided to start the threshold with my running group and see what happened. My hammies felt fine during the threshold but they are not ready to go much under 6:00 pace, so my 200s were pretty light in 0:43-0:44 each. I didn't look at my watch at all during the threshold and when my running buddy asked what I thought I'd done I said 6:30, so I was pretty happy with what I actually did as a starting point. Working with Casey and Sierra, good weather, and a flat course sure helped!
• Jan. 14: 2 x 2 mile pick ups to marathon effort during an 18.3 mile run, one mid-way (8.3-10.3ish) and one almost at the end (16.1-18.1) in 6:29, 6:35, 6:38, 6:39. I didn't look at my watch so I'd stay true to effort. I wish my effort would have produced faster paces, but I suppose that is always the case!
• Jan. 17: 10 x 1:00 at threshold effort/1:00 at marathon effort. I covered 3.16 miles total in the 20:00 and enjoyed this little flux training workout. My paces weren't super consistent, but I also don't think GPS is super accurate for 1:00 efforts. There was a clear difference between threshold and MP at each "shift", which was the main objective. Threshold ranged from 5:42-6:16, and MP ranged from 6:21-6:56.
• Jan. 22: The workout was supposed to be 4 easy, 5 at 50k effort, 4 easy. I put my Garmin screen on heart rate only and wore my chest strap so I'd keep it at real 50k effort (~158 bpm), but I could not get my HR much above 145 for some reason! I was a bit sick and was running this on fatigued legs by design, but it was odd. So it was more like 5 fast-easy on hills in 7:22, 7:35, 7:24, 7:19, 7:17.
• Jan. 24: Unstructured fartlek for 6 miles (3 warm up and 3 cool down) because I was too sick to do a real workout! This was completely effort-based and probably not very fast.
• Strides/Hill Strides: Jan. 3, 5, 10, 16, 19, 20, 27.
• Doubles: none this month - I'm missing them but not in a place to add them back yet.
• Favorite workout: January 17 because I love shifting gears like that!

#jumpingjanuary outtake

My favorite of Abby (I'd taken
my shoes off, which was a barrier
to jumping much!

Long Runs/Medium Long Runs (12 miles+):

• Jan. 4: 12 miles (8:09)
• Jan. 7: 16.1 miles (7:39), which I felt super good on, which I was super excited about. 
• Jan. 14: 18.3 miles (7:34), with a workout, described above.
• Jan. 15: 12.2 miles (7:59), including 1 mile picked up to 50k effort, which ended up being 7:18 up a long constant incline so I'm grading it to 7:08.
• Jan. 21: 20.2 miles (7:50), that felt harder than I'd have liked for an easy 20, but I had a bit of a cold.
• Jan. 22: 13.1 miles (7:57), that I also l had a cold during...
• Jan. 24: 12.2 miles (7:43) that included a 6 mile unstructured fartlek.
• Jan. 28: 16 miles (7:52) that felt a lot harder than it should have. I started on a Z-pack 8 hours after this run because it was day 10 of that illness!
• Jan. 29: 12.5 miles (8:28) that was pretty hilly and pretty draggy, but got it done!
• Favorite long run: Jan. 7 because I felt amazing.

We had more fun on this Jan. 1 run than
the person who hit this sign had on NYE

Sean's in town jumping

Post-long run #jumpingjanuary

Running Highlights:

• Multiple bRUNches!

bRUNCH #1 - Jan. 2

bRUNCH #2 - Jan. 8

bRUNch #3 - Jan. 16

Life Highlights:

• It snowed the most it has since we moved into our current home in 2011, with about 8 inches on Jan. 25. It mostly all melted within 48 hours. Then we got a lot of ice on Jan. 29 followed by a lot of sleet on Jan. 30. My mileage has taken a hit; I ran 4 miles on my treadmill on Jan. 30 and just lifted on Jan. 31. I don't enjoy the treadmill and am not training for anything specifically right now, so the only reason for any of it was restlessness!
• It was pretty low-key month so here are some cute photos of my cats.

That's my road

Books (the ones in bold I gave 5 stars):

• The Cloisters by Katy Hays
• I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepets
• The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
• Foster by Claire Keegan
• Little Nothings by Julie Mayhew
• The Sentence by Louis Erdrich
• I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennett McCurdy
• Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
• Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane C. Ortlund
• Prodigy (Legend #2) by Marie Lu
• Champion (Legend #3) by Marie Lu
• Rebel (Legend #4) by Marie Lu
• A Christmas Memory by Richard Paul Evans
• Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
• Fast After 50: How to Race Strong for the Rest of Your Life by Joe Friel
• Cilka's Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #2) by Heather Morris

Theme for the month:

• Learning: I've always been a lot more likely to do too much instead of not enough, but little by little I've been improving at that!