Solid Monday Through Friday

December 24th: 3.5 miles easy with my sister Sarah. Headed over to Kimber's house for Christmas Eve dinner with her family. Brookie and I hung out the whole time. Kimber was kinda kicked to the sidelines for the night. Haircuts, house, and making the tree "pretty" for Santa Claus (applying imaginary solution to the branches to make them better for Saint Nick).

Drove to Newtown, CT to my parents house to make sure I woke up Christmas Day with my parents. Sarah and Bob came in late late (12:30am).

December 25th: 6.5 miles (4 with Sarah, added another 2.5 miles on) after opening presents and breakfast, but before company arrived. Relatives came over to around 1pm and hung out for the evening. Delicious appetizers and dinner. Kimber came over around 5:30pm for dessert and to sleepover. Delicious pork roast for dinner my mom made.

December 26th: Made the decision to extend the Christmas vacation and stay an extra day in CT. The plan was to do some post Christmas shopping and see a movie. We chilled and ended up not seeing the movie. The weather wasn't too promising so everyone made the smart decision to head out earlier than later.

Home by 5pm. I hadn't run yet and a workout was on the training plan. I changed up and ran to the Chen campus for mile, 2x800, 4x400 on the sidewalk route that is marked off. I warmed up along the route and found that it was too icy/snowy for a workout. I moved it to the main roadway through the campus and it worked out well. Windy and cold out, but I suffered through it. I did not map out the distances before the workout so I just went off effort/time. 5:21, 2:12 (2:26 effort, but I stopped at the wrong spot), 2:26, 80, 75, 80, 75. Warmup: 3+ (23:45) Cooldown: 3+ (25:00). I jumped on the iPad and mapped out my intervals. Mile = 0.99 mile. 800 = 0.50 mile. 400 = 0.26 mile. Sweetness! Thought of Bob Wiles when I ran the extra .01 for my 400s. As someone once said, 400's are a quarter mile to nowhere. You gotta do the extra 1%. I actually did an extra 18 meters or about 3 seconds on a 75 second quarter. 11 miles on the day and back for a protein shake.

December 27th: Woke up around 6:20am to a snow covered car and terrible roads. Cereal with almond milk for breakfast. Work 7:30am-4pm. Home to relax and eventually make it out for an easy run with Goup.

10 mile effort (74:11). Probably ran closer to 9.5 miles, but it's in the books as 10. All side roads and easy running. Hips and hamstrings slowly starting to ache from the slipping and sliding on the snow/slush covered roads. Happy to get in the time/distance on the legs with the weather/conditions not being ideal.

December 28th: 5+ miles in the AM before work @ 6am. Oatmeal for breakfast. Packed up my bags for the weekend. Work 8am-4ish. Leftover fillet mingon and double stuffed potatoes (family term, the public known them as twice baked potatoes). Traveled right over to Leominster Mass to my sister Sarah's. 2nd BU mini meet for me and ready to lower my times.

Met Sarah, Bob (Sarah's fiancé), and some of her friends for dinner at Rye and Thyme. White pizza with bacon, ham, red onions, mozzarella, parmesean, lettuce, and tomato garlic aioli. Delicious. Over to my sister's friend's house for games (pictionary) and pigs in a blanket. More and more people came over and we ended up playing pictionary with 12 people total. 4 teams of 3 people. Lots of fun and home by 12:45am. Bed and feeling good heading into the second indoor of the year.

Been making diesel protein shakes in the Magic Bullet. Peanut butter, bananas, chocolate syrup. Simple, but always hits the spot.