With the new job starting back in early December, I’ve found training a bit more difficult than expected.  Long days at the office + short Winter days + the allure of wine and Pete time = lack of training motivation.  I will say, however, that the recent acquisition of a treadmill has been quite a savior (thanks MoHo!).  I’ve at least been able to fit in some shorties at night and get in some more substantial runs on the weekends.

I’ve also had a couple of great opportunities to head up to the mountains and get some great training runs in at altitude.  They were cold (think -10 degrees), snowy (think whiteout conditions) and absolutely fantastic!  Hopefully those runs will supplement a bit of the lack of training on my end during the week.  Thankfully the days are getting longer and warming up enough to get me excited for Spring conditions.

Here’s a couple snapshots of the past couple months:

Regardless of my lack of significant training, I (at the last minute) decided to compete in Colorado Runner’s Snowman Stampede 5 Miler.  I had initially planned on running the 10 miler, but the mileage wasn’t there, so I decided to do the 5.  While I wasn’t necessarily happy with my results, it was still a great race that gave me a good benchmark as to where my fitness is at.  Heck, I even PR’ed without realizing it (I don’t run many 5 milers, apparently).

With all that said, I have quite a bit of work to do leading up to the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab in (GULP!) less than a month.  Here’s to lighting fires – I’m heading out now!!