After the Snow

Yesterday was spent inside, playing with Sam, watching the snow pile up outside and the wind howl through the trees. I'll admit that I didn't even feel badly about taking the day off. I just wasn't enthused to go out and run in those conditions, so we enjoyed playing with all of Sam's cool (and noisy) new Christmas presents, and reading books, and walking around the house. In the past week or so, Sam has definitely progressed to being truly able to walk on her own, which is very exciting for us (and for my back!)! She can stand herself up, steady herself and walk a ways to one of us, or pivot off of whatever piece of furniture she is holding onto and take a few toddling steps, although honestly, she still prefers the comfort of holding onto one of our finger's and running across the room with us in tow, knowing we won't let her fall. But it's nice to know she can do it on her own if she wants to :-)

After a zero day spent entirely indoors yesterday, I knew I had to get out there this morning. This was reinforced by the fact that I took a look at my running log last night, and realized that I am almost to 1,100 miles this year, and would hit if it I ran 23 more miles in 2010. Cool. While 1,100 is not nearly as many as a lot of our runner friend's will run this year, and not quite as many miles as I ran in 2008 (1,112) (*before Sam), it is way more than I ran in 2009 (675.5) when pregnant and during the first few months of Sam's life, and is certainly a respectable number for this working mom and one that makes me feel like I am truly a runner again!

I made a dent in the 23 mile deficit with this morning's 5.25 mile run. After dropping Sam off at daycare, I put on my screw shoes and headed across the street. I wasn't feeling so ambitious that I wanted to take on a trail run through 12 inches of fluffy, untouched and unpacked snow on the powerlines, so I headed down the Connector and into Highland Green for a road run. The shoulder of the Connector was messy and the Highland Green Road wasn't much better, but the screw shoes gripped through the slush and packed snow and I was still able to run at a decent pace, despite the rather strong wind that swirled around and seemed to grab at me no matter which direction the road turned.

I'm planning on a long run of 14 miles on Friday, which leaves me with 3.75 miles to run tomorrow to reach an even 1,100 for the year. Perfect. And although today's road run wasn't a bad one, I think I'll be taking to the woods instead!