February finish

Wow, another month of 2010 gone by. It was a good month, though, and even though it was only four weeks long it does seem like plenty of time has passed by. I guess March can come on in—though hopefully not like a lion.

I finished up the first month of Spring Training 2010 with 51.26 miles this week (thanks to five running days), and 168.90 for the month (no, I don't regret not hitting 170). I feel quite pleased as I successfully completed all my planned speedwork, long runs, and tempo/pace runs.

"Sugar-free February" was not a complete success, but I don't believe it was a failure either. I did not remain completely sugar or treat free, but I could probably list out every single aberration, as they were quite few. (I'm not going to list them.) I succeeded in my major objective, which was weaning myself from the need/desire to have a treat every single day, eat goodies in the office, and over-indulge in general. I think that I truly enjoyed and savored the treats that I did have, so I'm not kicking myself.

I think for March I'm going to stick with the same plan, keeping mostly sugar-free with a few exceptions for special occasions. We'll see how it goes.

Yesterday I did a 10K in LaConner, the Smelt Run. I'll write a post about it when I download the pictures my mom took. For now I'll just say that I was happy with the result, 50:36, which was not a PR but was more than two minutes faster than any 10K I've ever run except for my PR race last fall.

Since I proved to myself that I can still run fast, I felt less pressure during my long run today, although there was a different kind of pressure to get done early enough to watch the gold medal hockey game (or most of it). I didn't go out until almost 10 a.m., and I was doing 13 miles (ended up 13.25), so obviously I didn't quite make it. But I watched/listened to most of the first period while I was showering and changing, then went over to Rod's for the rest. Obviously it didn't really get good until the last few minutes. :) So we lost in overtime—I secretly feel happy for the Canadians, winning the gold in hockey in their home games.

I lounged around reading and watching the 50K cross country race for the rest of the afternoon. That was another one that didn't get exciting until the last few minutes! Man, that was something—the German had what seemed a commanding lead and the Norwegian surged ahead in the last few metres. Just like a "real" race (meaning a marathon or other running race)! I'm a Norwegian, so I was happy.

Time to go to bed—up early to run in the morning! (And go to work, of course.)