Into? Away from? What a week.
This isn’t the place for that, so I’ll just offer love and hugs and an ear if anyone ever needs one.
By far the highlight of my week was celebrating my fourth running anniversary, but it was overall a really solid week of running. While on my runs I found myself reflecting even more on the year that was 2020 in running.
Mileage:
- January 43.78
- February 66.47 (all of 2020 races: 10K, 4M, Half, 7 Mile)
- March 56.02
- April 19.31 (aka finally let the IT Band heal)
- May 36.66 (building back up)
- June 52.73
- July 76.48
- August 91.46
- September 90.24
- October 96.52
- November 80.59
- December 80.43
That shakes out at 80 miles/month over the non-injured half of the year. Thanks again Marcia for coach voicing me to stop doing what hurt. Might there be a hundred mile month in 2021? If not for the upcoming post-travel quarantine I’d say January might be a candidate as this was a solid week.
I’m used to all the challenges appearing in January in line with New Years’ resolutions, but in all the years I’ve been a Kindle user, I’ve never been offered a Kindle Challenge. It looks easy to hit and I’ll take a $5 credit. Benefit of some down time to start the year was three books read through last weekend and another nearly two this week. Best so far is Samantha Allen’s Real Queer America. Saddest? Alex Trebek’s The Answer Is (and yes I sniffled through Friday’s episode)
As a way of preparing for quarantine, I started my free Peloton trial and so far it’s fun. I really liked the foam rolling class (Thanks, Coco) and am excited to try the strength training ones when I’m home and with the new to me dumbbells. I like the idea of the free two months to really decide if it’s going to work for me. I have a feeling Deborah’s 12 of the Most Useful Features post is going to be very helpful!
Speaking of quarantine, had a bit of a digital scare this week when I got an alert from the New York COVID app that someone who tested positive was within six feet of me for over ten minutes… on December 27. I’ve tested negative in the interim, so wasn’t particularly worried, but the alert was nerve-wracking. That was a weird message to get almost two weeks later. Oddly I was only in two places that day and with one other person. I’m guessing it was someone somewhere in Central Park, because I wasn’t within six feet of anyone otherwise, and the only person I was with didn’t get an alert. Before I checked the date I assumed it was my travel day, but it wasn’t. I still haven’t decided if I’m glad for these alerts, sanity wise, but glad to know contact tracing is in place.
Linking up with Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Run Down

- never miss a Monday: wasn’t sure about this after Sunday’s hard run, but really wanted to get the work year off to a good start so I did a short, chill run to the beach. It’s ~ 3 mi and in my pre-coffee brain I went past 3.1 thinking 3.2 was 5K. There are worse things than an extra tenth.
- Tuesday: up for a chilly sunrise around the marina and some errands.

- Wednesday: happy runversary to me! It’s funny looking at Facebook memories, I think it might have actually been January 7, but I celebrated it in the past on the 6th, so the 6th it is. Six miles, on the sixth before the world got ugly.


- Thursday: my achilles requested and received a break from the intracoastal bridge. It’s always fun to explore the streets of this area. Aside from being out of winter, one of the best things about being here is space to eat and work and how cheap everything is. Living on salads (and, full disclosure, PB&J) and so happy. It’s even more colorful than this pic looked. And it has been *lovely* to have a table to sit at for lunch. (Spoiler, I still didn’t make it out on lunch despite thinking about cross training swim/stretch). I actually have a choice of two tables, two desks, although I’ve mostly been working from an arm chair on the terrace, because who wants to be indoors? I’m going to miss space and the ability not to eat at my desk. It’s not enough to get me to move most likely, but I’m very curious to see what rents look like when my lease is up and what I can possibly get for the same amount of money.
- Friday: I wish I had a waterproof fitbit as with my pool running I probably had my step goal combined with some errands. Regardless of whether it “counted”, I really enjoy the pool cross training and it was likely a large part of what made this week’s volume work.

- Saturday: no plans beyond vaguely “long” and wanting to avoid the expected busy sidewalks by the beach on a Saturday morning. It was “chilly” so it was never really busy, but it was nice to re-visit the New Years Eve route through downtown Delray. As a bonus, found the green market and this amusing sign. Ended up at just more than eight miles and my first long run below a 12 minute mile average in a long time. I haven’t done speed work and haven’t been trying to get faster, but I love some flat terrain. Would have been faster except I walked the uphill portion of the intracoastal bridge. Much cooler than last Sunday made this much more pleasant. I spent the afternoon with the pool (deck) to myself as it was not at all pool weather, but no way was I going to miss a chance to be outside and reading.
- Sunday: short, flat shakeout meets errands. Upper right quad a little tight, and good excuse to do the foam rolling class again. More reading and, sadly, packing, as I prepare to go home.