A New Year, A New Training Cycle

Overall, 2017 was a productive running year. I covered a total of 1,260.5 miles. It's about 152 more miles than 2016. Considering I had some slowdowns (back problems over the summer months then marathon recovery in Nov-Dec), this is a pretty good number. I'd like to keep the running consistent as much as I can over the course of 2018. Fingers crossed. 

Two weeks ago started my next marathon cycle: the Paris Marathon is on Sunday, 8 April. Coming off a decent recovery from November's marathon, the mileage in week #1 was low with 28 miles (although I ran a strong tempo run in there!). Then unfortunately, I got hit with a stomach bug over Christmas. Even though my immediate symptoms only lasted 48 hours, the fatigue and crud remained the rest of the week. Finally on Saturday I was able to get out for a strong 5 miles in the park. 

Now the weather is just brutally cold! It was in the single digits yesterday and while I figured out a fix to keep my little toes warm (duct tape on the shoes!), the wind made running really challenging yesterday so I only made it 4 miles. That means today is on the treadmill, baby. It stinks, but the weather is still in the single digits and I just can't keep battling the frigid temps when I got to get a LOT of running in. 

The rest of my plan still follows Daniels' formula. Like last cycle, I plan to hit a few weeks of 50+ mpw, otherwise it'll be in the low 40's. In the interest of keeping myself healthy and injury-free, this week will probably only hit low 30's. It's early yet, so I'm hoping this is fine. 

This is what frigid weather running looks like! Brrrr!