I’ve never finished tax season in shape before, let alone in the incredible shape I found myself in on April 15 this year. Since the first 105 days of the year were so great for my fitness, I didn’t have to do that build-up to longer distances like I usually have to do. I ran 15 – 18 miles a week throughout tax season, and could easily do six miles at a time, so right away I could start thinking about Ragnar. Three separate legs in about 24 hours is something your body can get used to; and it’s extremely painful if you don’t prepare for it. I know, because I’ve done that

The first hurdle I’ve had since tax season ended has been the weather. We’ve had snow just about every week, a lot of cold rain, and a lot of, well, cold. I started running in cold and snow in October last year, and by the time April hit, I was done. I’d put in my ‘I’m a hardened runner, I can deal with cold and snow and wind and rain’ time, and turned into a wuss. I admit, I’ve run inside more than I’d like to have. I’ve run inside when it’s just ‘too cold’ (a phrase applying to -5 or below November through March, but which becomes +25 or below as of April 1). But, I have run.

The second hurdle is knowing what to do. Our Ragnar team captain is…busy. We didn’t have a meeting until two weeks ago. So, as prepared as I was to start preparing for Ragnar, I didn’t know what to prepare for. I kind of just went mid-range, and started planning for 6/6/6 as my distances. But as of the meeting, I’m doing the longest of the legs. This is a good thing – I’m in the shape to do it this year, and it’s a leg I really want to do. So now I’m preparing for 8/7/5. I keep getting it into my head that the first two legs are 10 miles, but they’re not. So I keep having to hold myself back and not train to go longer than I have to.

The third hurdle is holding myself back. Both on distance and on how often I’m running. My legs have felt very taxed in the last couple of weeks, and are just starting to feel normal. Since they’ve been tired, I’ve been cutting out about one short run per week, or even two. The long runs and doing 2 – 3 in 24 hours are what is important. But there’s a constant internal battle between ‘I know I can do this’ and ‘I know I shouldn’t do this’. While I usually run three times during the week and then do a long run on the weekends, for the next three weeks, I’m planning on cutting down to two runs during the week so my legs will feel refreshed for one or two long runs and a short run on the weekend.  It’s hard when I get go faster on short runs, and I like going faster.

Starting last weekend, I also began my newest battle with the downhill. My second leg is 7+ miles, one mile uphill and six miles downhill, basically. I don’t know what you believe, but as far as I’m concerned, uphill is easy. You push yourself, you go! Downhill, on the other hand, is a battle. You CAN go faster, but you have to hold back because it’s so hard on your body. But you want to take advantage at least somewhat of the gravity. I fought the downhill battle during my half-marathon in December, which is net 2000 feet downhill over 13 miles (2.9% decline average). This six miles will be very different, though. It’s something like a 4.5% decline average. So I’m hitting the newest treadmill at the gym, which will do a 3% decline, at least once a week. And I’m hoping some of the mountain passes open so I can do some other downhills for longer runs.

I’m also hoping our current spring weather holds, and I can get outside and practice on real hills, because the 4th of July 3 mile run comes up pretty fast after Ragnar. That 4th of July course is nothing to take for granted, especially when you’re hoping for a speedy run, as I am.

As an accountant, tax season is my life from January 1 to April 15. Obviously, very little else happens. It’s a struggle to stay sane, to get any sort of housework done, to get the Christmas Tree taken down (this happened the evening before Easter), to do anything resembling normal.

We knew we’d have to get up early and go to the gym in order to get in any workout. Working out at the end of a 10+ hour day just doesn’t happen. We had started getting up early and going to the gym in December in preparation. Because if you practice things, and do them all the time, eventually they’ll get easier, right?

Apparently that’s not true for getting up at 6AM and going to the gym. It will never get easier. It sucks every time. And while you feel good about it afterward, that doesn’t keep you from hating it the next morning, or the next.

Despite this, I had an incredibly productive tax-season, running-wise. I focused on short distances and speed. I still ran about 6 miles on the weekends, but never more than about 4.5 during the week. And I really did get faster. On April 15, I hit 250 miles run for the year. This has set me up to run 1000 miles this year, though I have to admit I’m going to have to step it up a notch in the second half of the year (since it’s now the end of May) for that to happen.

You know, the world likes to throw things at you. It throws you a loop just so you don’t get too comfortable.

First, we had weather. Weather of the kind that schools got cancelled, events got cancelled, and everyone went home early. The entire point of this escapade, I believe, was in order to mess with the timing of my workout. It worked, but I got 3 miles in anyway.

Then I got a cold. That kinda sucked. It wasn’t bad, just some runny nose and some coughing, so even though I knew the smart thing to do was skip the Turkey Trot in about -5 degrees on Thanksgiving morning, I really wanted to it. Especially since I’d be one of very few people to show up. Then I’d feel BA.

Got the email Wednesday night that the Turkey Trot was cancelled due to the cold. Well, I was really glad someone else made that decision for me, because I’m sure I would have made the wrong one and gone anyway.

I continued to fight the cold (both the sick and the weather) Thursday and Friday. I had to leave Friday Thanksgiving at my sister’s earlier than I would have liked due to increasing congestion. But Saturday I woke up clear! Clear sinuses, clear chest, clear head! It was awesome! Of course, that slowly went away through the day, but I still got to the gym and managed to ease back into a run. And I really did ease. I walked .25 miles, ran .5 miles, walked .25, ran .75, walked .25, ran 1, and walked .25.

So today I really had to do a longer run, since the Tucson half-marathon is 2 weeks away. I went out with the intention of pushing myself through 8 – 10 miles of walking, running, and whatever it took to get 8 – 10 miles done.

It wasn’t too cold – about 25 degrees. But it was windy, and snowing. Not nice fluffy snow, but stinging, biting, cold snow. I almost quit about a quarter mile in, turned around, and went back into the house to get the keys and find an open gym. But I convinced myself that was weak. I could do this. I could run out in the snow and be just fine. The first four miles were torture. But then I hit that ‘okay, this is easy’ place, and managed to fight through the wind coming at me, enjoy the wind at my back, and watch my footing sufficiently to not hurt myself through a full 10 miles on precariously plowed roads (made friends with the snowplow guy who passed me four times). I felt better than I have all week.

Chris and I just finished listening to Born to Run on CD. It was really fun, but makes me want to try going barefoot even more. As soon as the Tucson half is done, I’m giving it a shot. And I hope thinking about the book will help my stride in running shoes, too. I think I might actually have a running mantra now – the quote from Barefoot Ted – “My life is a controlled explosion.” I feel that.

Now I’m reading The Long Run (thank goodness my library lets you request books for them to buy!). Hope I get something good out of this book, too.

Made it to the Turkey Trot this morning run by my gym. It’s my fourth year in the area, and I’ve never made it before.

I was ready for rain, snow, cold… what I wasn’t ready for was steady wind of 20 – 30 miles per hour, gusts of 30 – 40 mph. And yeah, it really affected all of us out there.

I can’t believe this race is one town over… listening to the description of the race course by the gym director, I had no idea where I was going, but he promised it was really well marked. He kept mentioning this new, undeveloped cul-de-sac.

There were probably 30 of us. The 5Kers started outside the track at the same time the kids 1 mile run and adults 1 mile walk started on the track. The kids 1 mile walk was so cute. And I’m so impressed that the employees at my gym watch the kids after they finish the run if their parents are both doing the 5K.

This is a really small community. Our entire little valley is probably a total of 9,000 people, and there aren’t a lot of runners. So I thought I had a chance to finish pretty high in my 19+ age group.

Right off the start, I knew I wasn’t going to be first. Out of the 9 or 10 women who were obviously over 19, one of them took right off, and another one hung out just out of my reach (about 250 feet ahead) the entire time. I tried to catch her several times, but this brings me back to the wind.

At one point, one of the guys I was running in a group with had a ear muff (one that attaches over his ear – no headband) actually blow off his ear! I ran to grab it since I was the closest. (He informed me afterward I should remove 10 seconds from my time for running after his ear muff). Afterward, the top under-18 boy said his beanie actually blew off twice…his beanie! And I as got to the point where I could see the undeveloped cul-de-sac, I got hit with blasts of wind so hard that I didn’t actually move forward when my legs moved in that direction. It was really quite fun, and we all had a good laugh about it afterward.

So, second place in all events got a pumpkin pie; first place got a turkey. Being that I came in third, I didn’t. But that’s okay, I was so impressed with the kids’ races that I didn’t matter. In the 1 mile run, the first and second boys finished in something like 7:39 and 8:15. They were 8 years old! I’m looking for a strong cross-country team in my little community in about 8 years.

I have another Turkey Trot on Thursday morning (3.4 miles… a guaranteed PR), and I’m quite excited about that, too!