Life lately

Soooooo it's been awhile. 

I apologize. 

There's really no excuse. 

I'll chalk it up to getting back into the grind.

Recently it's been a lot of work, running, body pump, dinner, second dinner, sleep, repeat. 

Between working two jobs, beginning a marathon training program for an undetermined marathon (more on that later) and trying to maintain some sort of social life, I seem to have forgotten the existence of this blog and of my camera.

So to partially make up for my absence, here are the most recent photos from my iPhone. 

^^ super grainy photo of Church St. 

My new motto: when in doubt, take a picture of the lights on Church St.

^^The Santa 5K in downtown Burlington last weekend.

Unfortunately I didn't get to run, but got to see some of the race on my way to work!

^^One of my three new running groups, the GMAA (Green Mountain Athletic Association). So far I've run on 3 very chilly Sundays with these folks and couldn't be happier to have found them. I'm looking forward to many more long runs with these guys.

^^Because you all were wondering what I had for dinner tonight. Just kidding of course. Still figuring out this whole cooking and eating for one person thing, where's an older sister to make you huevos rancheros when you need her?!?

^^Indian Brook Reservoir.

Second new running group: The Long Trail Runners 

Three of us ventured to do some trail running this Saturday morning. It was glorious. I may have had a dream about pacing an ultra marathon after this run. Maybbbbbbbe it's a sign. Just maybe.

^^And one more Church St. photo for good measure. 

And here's a little bit more that's been happening lately in terms of mileage.

After taking a month plus of just running what I felt like following the Chicago Marathon I was getting antsy to start training for something again. I like the structure and planned runs that go along with training. Somehow I find it's much easier to get out of bed and hit the streets or treadmill if I don't have to decide how much to run. 

Enter: the Hanson Method. 

Between having had a couple of friends use the Hanson Training program and have some great races, and some of my favorite running bloggers who have also used the plan I was thoroughly intrigued. I had read some about it and am excited to give it a try. I'm ready for the tired legs, speed work, tempo runs and more tired legs. I'm about a week and a half in and last week I ran 38 miles. I haven't been keeping track recently but I can venture a bet that I haven't logged that many miles since early this spring. It feels good to be pushing my body a bit more, and definitely helps that I've found a few early morning runners to get my butt out of bed. However, it doesn't make it any easier that temperatures have dropped significantly and it seems winter has shown up for real. 

Although I began a training plan, I haven't decided if there is going to be a marathon in 20 weeks or not. I signed up for Vermont City Marathon on May 25, 2014 however I've contemplated putting an earlier race on the calendar in order to have this training plan be the correct amount of time. I haven't decided what I'm going to do and probably won't until VCM training officially starts; when I'll either start the plan over of continue on and run an earlier race, or who knows really! Sometimes I find myself seriously considering a 50K...but now I'm just talking crazy. 

And since this post has had a little bit of everything, here is my favorite song these days.

And with that I bid you goodnight.