I have to say that i’ve rather enjoyed the first week of reduced miles and relaxing after finishing up the fall marathon season on Sunday. I enjoyed it so much that I blew off my ‘turkey trot’ on Thursday as well .. I just didn’t feel like doing it and I guess when I signed up for it, I didn’t realize that its an 1:45 drive on way to the race, then the same back … only to run a 9 miler (1:15 run)? If the race started earlier, it would’ve been better, but with a 10:30am start, i wouldn’t have gotten home until almost 2pm on Thanksgiving, and it just wasn’t worth it… (ok, enough excuses for being lazy, right?)

So whats next… well, 3-4 weeks of rest and recovery before starting to build up the miles again for the Ocean Drive marathon in late March. I feel like I can hit that marathon with just 14 weeks of formalized training since i’m in pretty good aerobic shape already. The biggest post-season injury I have to recover from is my back and hips, which i’m hoping with the reduced mileage, will start to go away. I’ve started to stretch my back more and intend to do some sort of cross-training as well to help break the cycle of constant running (although I always say that). The unfortunate part is that the weather has seemed to become more seasonable now, but I guess I should be thankful it held off this long to get cold.

The only problem I see at this point is that I really need to control my eating … its tough coming off of 60+ mile weeks down to like 35 miles now, my body still craves all kind of stuff, but I don’t have the calories to spare. The worst thing is the holiday coming up (not to mention Thanksgiving). I really gorged myself on Thursday, then gorged myself again today .. i’m not heading down the right path, but I am enjoying myself.

I almost forgot, its ‘lets look at the awful running pictures from the Philly marathon’ time. Sorry they are low quality and low-res, but I refuse to pay the outrageous price for the full print:

Ok … i’m not sure if thats the look of pain or the look of concentration (i guess it depends where they snapped the pictures). Well, thats it for the Philly marathon talk, on to other things ….

So I wrote about doing the Providence marathon the first weekend of May … not sure if i’ll stick with that or not. I’m looking for some variety on the second spring marathon on that weekend in a warmer place than Rhode Island .. I was looking at the Flying Pig marathon in Cincinnati (heard good things), or maybe the Pittsburgh marathon (also heard good things) … anyone reading this have any other positive suggestions for a good spring marathon that weekend? Please comment if you do!

Anyway, I am enjoying my rest and relaxation, but I do miss the structure of training … it won’t be long though and i’ll be back at it.