A Month Off

This blog has been pretty quiet for the last month as I wound down from the non-existent ski season and started to prepare for spring and summer sports and races, and to get my house and yard in a bit better shape than they were in last year.  I got a bunch of leaves raked, but my negligence last year means the bare spots on my lawn continue to increase.  The nice moss keeps expanding, but sadly so does the creeping charlie.  I'm trying to be a bit more proactive about lawn care this year, but am not quite ready to bust out the mower just yet.  I've been keeping up with the P90X program a bit better the last couple weeks, and did 10 chin-ups as part of a workout set this weekend.  Once I hit 10 pull-ups I will be pretty happy.

I finally got my boat out last weekend.  Emily and I got about an hour of paddling in on the Mississippi.  She is getting to be quite adept at steering and even knows cool racing tactics and how to read the river and such.  The boat feels really good, it cuts through the water well, tracks pretty decent, and is a dream to portage, even with the portage pads precariously attached.  It travels well too, not sliding around on top of the car.  The plan is to get out for a canoe on the lakes with Jallie this afternoon, some good windy weather practice.

Training this spring has been pretty exciting so far.  I put in over 40 hours in March, my biggest month since 2010, and 118 miles of running, which might be my biggest month since highschool.  I have been doing a couple of long runs with Nicole Porath, and it is super fun to have someone of a similar pace to run with.  Both of the runs have had 2x3 mile uptempo in them, with a target of 6:00 min/mile pace which is nice to break up a long run a bit.  The last couple miles of both runs have been a bit tough, but overall the legs feel pretty strong and recover well.  It is more a muscle tightness than anything it feels like.  I've been trying a couple short runs with the Vibram 5 fingers as well and while they create some different sore spots than I'm used to, but as long as I keep it easy and build up slow they should be a great training tool to help keep the lower legs strong and the technique from getting sloppy.

Things are going to take off for the season soon.  This weekend is Easter, the weekend after I leave for Germany (supposedly, I'll believe it when I get on the plane) and the weekend after that is Trail Mix.  My relay team, the Nordic Ninjas has a 6 year winning streak going so hopefully this will be lucky number 7.  Also, with Matt in great shape, me running well, and a new ringer on our team by the name of Erik Teig, we should have a shot at the course record if it turns out to be a nice day.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back to a more consistent posting schedule going forward with more to talk about now that spring has sprung.