“Stay warm out there!” the cashier at Publix cheerfully said to me before his manager handed me my bags and I headed out the door this morning. I read the gentleman’s name and even had a short conversation with him about the day’s plans but the only thing I can remember about him now is his glasses and the fact the lady ahead of me told him he should work in radio because he had such a nice voice. I had been to the gym earlier, teaching the 5:45am Power Hour at Title Boxing Club and followed it up with about 20 minutes of weight lifting, a one-mile run, some rounds on the speed bag, heavy bag, and double-ended bag, and finally a 10-minute stretching session. With it being a holiday I didn’t have to worry about being at work on time so I made sure to take my time with my stretches and even propped my feet up while scanning my Facebook feed afterward while slurping down my protein shake. I wore a hoodie to the gym, warmed up while wearing it, ran with it, and even wore it for my speed/heavy/double-ended bag routine so I knew it was cold outside. My mustache had frozen during my 1 mile run so I really knew it was cold outside. However, I had forgotten a dry jacket to wear to the store afterward so there I stood paying for my groceries wearing my brimmed beanie and a Ramones t-shirt. It’s cold, yeah, but it’s not that cold, I thought after glasses radio voice man encouraged me to properly maintain my body’s temperature. The sun was out and it was warm, the breeze was a bit cool, but otherwise it wasn’t terrible.

My car said it was 18 degrees. At that point I realized I wasn’t just some dude that got up before dawn to work out with 10 other people and then went to the store – no, I was a lunatic that ran outside wearing nothing but shorts, a sweat-drenched tee and a paper-thin hoodie that also forgot to pack a dry hoodie to change into after his shower. You can encourage me to stay warm, Mr. Publix Radio Man, but you can’t fix stupid.

Last week was tough. I maintained my regular week’s schedule: attending class at Title on Monday morning (followed by weight-lifting and a 1-mile run (9:33)), teaching a Power Hour at noon Monday, teaching a Power Hour on Wednesday morning (more weights afterward and another 1-mile run (9:43)), and teaching a third Power Hour on Friday morning. I decided to attend an additional class on Wednesday at noon just to see a trainer I hadn’t seen in a while and she brought the pain. What I thought was going to be a fun lunch-break exercise turned into serious work and I came back to the office half-crippled. Mostly due to the absurd amount of squats we did and the most push-ups I’d done since completing the #1000PressUpChallenge on January 1. I was sore from this class the rest of the week so by the time my Friday morning class was over, I spent the rest of the time stretching and wanting to lay down before work – no weights or running on Friday. Lame.

Five Power Hours in one week isn’t anything to be ashamed of, though – that’s a lot of work (and about 5,000 calories burned!). And thank god for all of the hard work because I really went a little crazy over the weekend with lots of wine, a bit of beer, dinner at Red Lobster (not crazy about the place but we had a gift card to burn. Also, I ate more that night than I can remember eating in a very long time – it was embarrassing) and lots more junk food that includes mall food court Chinese food, a bacon cheeseburger, and a grilled chimichanga stuffed with shrimp, chicken, and steak. Work hard, play hard, I guess, but I need to work a little harder if I’m going to party that hard.

Wanting to stay on top of everything, I headed out on Sunday morning for my weekly long run, this time going out for 4 miles. At this point I’m glad that I have time to build the mileage back up before my half-marathon in April but I’m disappointed in myself and a little bit angry for getting hurt in December after hitting the 9 mile mark. It’s better to fall back and start building up again after a month than to be seriously injured and be out indefinitely, I guess, but it’s still a bummer.

I made it out to the Greenway around 9:30 Sunday morning and found it was very cold and was somehow beginning to snow. Funny, because it was spitting snow the last time I rolled up to the Greenway on a Sunday morning and I hadn’t seen any of the stuff in between. I warmed up with a couple of minutes of stretching and jumping rope, a practice I’m experimenting with currently and seeing positive results, and hit the trail. No oddball sightings this day except for a fire extinguisher that had been wedged upside down between two logs that were out in the creek. I’d really love to know how this shit gets there.

I finished my run at 4.01 miles (6.45 km) with a time of 46:23 averaging an 11:34/mile (7:30/km) pace. This really brought my weekly average down quite a bit from last week but I’m not upset about it. It feels good to be back out there running at a longer distance each week and am looking forward to hitting 5 miles this weekend. 11 weeks stand between me and my half-marathon. I’m very excited. I’m extremely terrified.

A friend let me borrow the book The Running Revolution: How to Run Faster, Farther, and Injury-Free–for Life by Nicholas Romanov and I finished it up yesterday. While I didn’t follow his program I did read through the lessons on form, the philosophy, psychology, and even spirituality behind his Pose method of running and have found that by implementing some of his suggestions my running has already improved just in the last couple of weeks. My foot injury back in December was due to bad form and by focusing on this method I have a feeling I’m going to continue to see PRs in my running and hopefully remain injury-free for some time to come. In the last few sections of the book he mentions how runners don’t typically have an off season but it’s very common for runners to take as much as a month off from the sport and spend their time cycling or doing yoga during that time to allow the body adequate rest from the torture the sport of running puts your body through. Don’t quote me on this but I think I may do just that after my half in April. I’d actually really like to get more into yoga.

Anyway, here’s what this week looked like:

This Week:
This Week’s Mileage	6.15 Miles (9.9 km)
This Week’s Avg. Pace	10:17/Mile (6:23/km)
2016 Running
Runtastic Runs (1/01-Present)	14.33 Miles
Total Yearly Miles:	14.33
Miles Left Until 2016 Goal (350 Miles): 335.67

I’m going to leave this one with a song that I’ve identified with pretty hardcore lately. Interpret it however you will. It’s just rock and roll.