I am back from a mini-vacation at the Jersey Shore. The first few days were spent with some old work friends in Sea Isle City. It involved way to much alcohol but it was a good time. The weather was perfect and I had one, hung-over, 4 mile run along the beach and the boardwalk. Nothing remarkable except that I kept up a surprising 7:00 pace. Most likely because of the rest my legs have had over the last week, they were ready to go.

The last couple days, Heather and I stayed in a Bed and Breakfast in Ocean City. It was probably the most relaxing two days I’ve had in the last year. We spent one day laying on the beach and walking the boards. The second day we rented bikes and cruised up and down the length of the island, stopping for a trip to beach when we wanted to take a dip.

It was back to reality on Monday evening. The humidity is way up and the summer mugginess is now in full swing. I went out for a trip in Wissahickon Park. Spent the first 4 miles on the trails and the last 4 miles on Forbidden Drive. It was my first run of any decent length in a week and a half. Not surprisingly I felt good, despite the tropical feeling in air and the sweat that was dripping off of me by the time I finished. 8+ miles in 62 minutes.

I thought a lot about a fall marathon on this run and the week preceding it. Why come this far with my running, so close to a sub 3-hour marathon, and just to let it slip through my fingers only because I don’t really feel like going through another training cycle this summer? I know I would regret it down the line. I also know I’d miss having that goal out there to carry me through the summer and fall and keep on track with running and my overall fitness. Plus I don’t want to miss those training runs over the summer with running buddies.

So I thought of some resolutions for this training cycle to hopefully work on a few things that I don’t like about training.

Stick to the training plan. Especially the core workouts including tempo and interval training. (I don’t want to look back over my training and again wish I was more diligent about sticking to the plan)
Cross train more often on days off and recovery days
Do not worry so much about lower weekly mileage because I biked and swam on a couple recovery days. These workouts count too even if they don’t increase total mileage.
Run more in the morning. 2 days a week is a good place to start.

I’ll remind myself to look back at this during training.