Running? What's That?

Since October 21, I have run less than 30 miles. Total. I sort of forgot about running. I am still pretty active, considering I teach 14 fitness classes a week. And that is totally fun, but it's not the same workout as running. And I say that as an instructor who is really, really tough. Even though I have a love/hate relationship with running, I have to say, nothing really compares to the feeling it brings.

I did briefly consider changing my blog and twitter handles - but christensquatsandlunges and christendrinkswine didn't really have the same ring to them. So alas, it's time to run again.

I don't really have any races to train for at the moment. I am doing 2 5K's in December, but I've never really considered those something I need to specifically train for. My husband and I decided we would do something similar to what we did last year - run at least 100 miles between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. We are in luck this year - Thanksgiving falls early, so plenty of time to hit that goal. I created a dailymile challenge if anyone would like to do this as well!

Otherwise I'll probably be trying to run 5 days a week, with one day of speedwork and one day of tempo/inervals/something.

We ran last weekend while we were in Fort Worth, TX. I love the Trinity Trails there - it's a nice change of pace from city running.

We even did some trail running, which was great until the trail disappeared and the grass got taller. I am absolutely terrified of snakes, and all I could think was "rattlesnakes! rattlesnakes!". (I should add I never saw a snake, I just KNEW there might be one where I couldn't see it) I really started to panic - shallow breathing and all. Which doesn't really jive with running. Even though I didn't say a word to my husband (I like to pretend I'm a hardass, even though almost no one believes it), he knew I was freaking out and picked up the pace and got me out of there ASAP. What can I say, I'll never be an adventurer.

And then I didn't run at all for 8 days. I can't remember the last time I didn't run for 8 days. I kept intending to run, but somehow I always avoided it. We finally got out for about 4.5 miles yesterday, and I was happy to see I didn't lose much fitness in my break.

So this is the week I get my ass back in gear and put some miles on my shoes! And let's be honest, all those upcoming holiday treats aren't going to burn off themselves. And I really don't want to buy new pants.