November 2013 Summary

Thanksgiving Morning:

Woken up at 3:45am and my wife alerted me she's in labor but not to far along. Thinking a lunch time baby. Wait, ain't this baby due in 10 days and not now?
Fast forward 45 minutes and she's going to have our son any moment. Thankfully already packed.  
Realizing we don't have a game plan for anyone to watch our daughter.
Running red lights along Downing on the way to the hospital. Now that was fun.
Explaining to my daughter how babies are really delivered and getting this reaction:

Actually that reaction is more from the lack of sleep combined with the sugar rush of a 6am popsicle!

6:30am baby boy born.  

So what did you do for Thanksgiving?

Now on to lesser important running related items.....

Runs - 22
Running Days - 22
Weightlifting Days - 11
Avg Miles per Running Day - 8.5
Vertical Feet Ran - 14,000
Injured - 0
Push Ups per Day/Month - 156
Push Ups per Day/Year - 108

I'll start with my Weightlifting first yet again as it's been my main focus for a few months now.  I had a goal of hitting the weight room 12 times this month but had to adjust to baby boys schedule.  Still, the progress I've made since making the weights a focus has been great.

Focus is still on every body part.  One of the biggest improvements I've noticed over the past few months is finding that muscle balance between the right and left side of the body.  For example, I noticed on my dumbbell lunges, my right leg was weaker then my left.  I've noticed slight muscle imbalances all over the place and I've made it a goal to even them out as much as possible...specifically the legs.  

Hitting the weights pretty frequently rarely left me fresh when it came to Running.  Squats, lunges, calf raises take their toll when trying to run a 8 miler around the hood or up Mt Morrison later that same day or the next.  Or even a few days later.  

But whatever.  I'm not training for anything and enjoying the simple act of running.  And this past month has been very enjoyable!  3 random summits, 2 short races in one day, 1 twenty mile pancake run.  All with friends who share the same passion of running and breakfast beers!  While the weights have rarely left me fresh, the focus on balancing out the muscle strength has been very noticeable as of late.  Hard to explain but the simple act of running has felt its smoothest in months.  I am sure this is also a sign of being fully recovered from all the races I've done since February.

(Santa Fe has many fun trail running options!)

Speaking of being recovered, it's funny how ones mind quickly shifts to "now what!".  Part of me really wants to start up a new training cycle for an upcoming race but thankfully there is nothing on the race radar till March.  As for the month end numbers, I was hoping for slightly more but baby boy altered plans during the last long weekend of the month.

Push Up Challenge. The stats are now up above.  I made a huge push this past month thinking time would be limited with baby boy's arrival in early December.  What resulted was my best number of push ups in one month.

Looking Forward

Finding that sweet balance of family with a new born, work and running.  It won't be easy, especially with such short cold days in the immediate future.  But the challenge in finding that balance is all the motivation I need to get after it with all I got.  I already see a lot of 4am wake up calls for my week day runs.

I won't make a separate post for my 2014 schedule, but for now I'm looking at the following - Salida, Colorado in March. Lake City, Colorado in June.  Logan, Utah in September.  Many mountain adventures in between.