enthusiasm

7+ very easy miles at Forest Ridge yesterday after work.  I wanted to start the rest of this month off very easy.  I really feel like I'm beginning again.  These past few months have been devoted mostly to working on the house getting it ready for the family party and.......beer.  I've been killing the stress with too much beer and I need to get a grip on that.

For the first time ever I've written up a daily plan for each week.  In it I've included one morning of swimming, one morning of speedwork at a local park, one yoga session and one complete rest day.  I've got our usual Thursday group run and a run Saturday morning.  Sunday I have the club group run scheduled.  I also have calisthenics scheduled a couple of times a week.  The schedule may need some tweaking but there's a plan in place.

June 1 starts a big crossroads for me.  It's my 17yr anniversary of no smoking and my run mileage beginning point.  My long term goal for many years has been to maintain 20 miles on foot per week for as many years as possible.  Well, pretty much since '09 I've been living on past years running miles to maintain that average.  4 of the last 5 years I've come fairly close to the 1040 miles but have not reached it.  I'm not sure of the exact number but my average right now is in the area of 20.1 and, as of  May 1,  I'm already down 78 miles for this year.

With all that being said, my back is against the wall as of June 1 for maintaining the 20 mile average (87 miles per month), so it sort of feels like a new beginning, a fresh start.

The good part of this is that I'm mostly healthy as far as running goes so I've got that in my favor but I'm in pretty bad shape (relatively speaking).  I really want/ need to get back to 6:00-6:30hr 50k mark, and my big goal is lots of miles in the Grand Canyon a year from now.

To continue with my big overall goal means I'm going to have to start thinking like an athlete all the time again.  As I'm writing this I'm remembering the enthusiasm I and several new running friends had all those years ago.  I need to fire up that enthusiasm again somehow.

I'm trying to squeeze as many miles as possible into the remainder of this month so I'm going to start the new weekly schedule Monday June 1.

temp 88
hum 58