Happy New Year

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas (or holiday) as we did with our family in Northern California--though it's never long enough. We left San Diego during the torrential rains, got to enjoy them up north, and then returned to sunshiny wonderfulness. I did my first run in 8 days today after too much couch, cookies, candies and cakes. It was a sluggish and extremely blah run, but it felt good to be in the sun outside.

Take a little time today to reflect on your successes and lessons of this last year and set some goals (not resolutions) for the coming year.

To happiness, health and running--

Happy New Year

The Elfin Forest

Check.

It's been on my To-Do List for two years now, so on Sunday I fiiiiiiinally hiked around the Elfin Forest. And you know I didn't see a single damn elf. I was hoping to find one with a Santa hook-up. Maybe next time.

Except for lack of elves (and forest as you can see here), the Elfin Forest was lovely. Observe the shared walking stick collection--lovely and friendly. The hillsides were verdant and fresh looking from the rains we had a few weeks ago, and I was surprised by how many runners I saw making the trek up and down. -- I was even more impressed by the mountain bikers: the hills are not easy and there are sharp, jagged rocks.

Sunday's hike reminded me that I still need to look up and register for some trail races around here. I only did one last year, but I fell in love with the trails. Unfortunately, right now, I'm stuck with track workouts most of the time because I can't seem to get myself out the door before the sun goes down--and I'm too much of a wuss to run dark neighborhoods alone. I've been running 2-3 times a week at a track near my house. I'm starting to love it.

In fact, I like it so much I've started brainstorming all the ways to keep it interesting-- because let's be honest, running in a circle over and over and over and over again is boring and deeply depressing to think about. Right now my favorite thing to do is Tempo 400s, but I wrote down some of my other favs in an article HERE. (Scroll to the bottom of the article to see the exercises).

I'm looking for more ideas, so please share them here if you have a favorite.

Happy Running.