January in review: Days of darkness

Unfortunately, this has been my view for ... a while.

I was trying not to be the annoying person saying “hee hee, January has been 800 days long” since my month started out pretty great with some solid workouts, hanging out with friends, a trip to our local velodrome for race night, and other random fun. But about a week ago, around the same time my knee got mad at me for doing a regular speed run, the days upon days of cloudy skies caught up with me.

I had high hopes for getting outside for a few runs in January since the sun is setting a bit later, but every time I might have snuck out of work a bit early it was snowing or raining and I wasn’t feeling it. I only made it outside to run twice in January, both times early in the month, to celebrate the new year on the 1st and again on the 5th, when it started blizzarding on me anyway. All my other runs were inside on the treadmill.

The last week of the month hit me especially hard and I was exhausted and crabby all week. I don't have a real explanation other than I hadn't seen the sun in weeks. I had a regular doctor appointment, and she noted that my Vitamin D was low. "I wonder why?!?!" I asked her, pointing out the window. She recommended a bit more D and "try to get outside on the next sunny day, whenever that is." Sigh.

But, I did have a huge victory for January: getting to the pool five times, four more times than I made it to the pool in all of 2019. By my last swim on the 31st I was starting to feel like myself in the water again, actually to the point where I was concentrating on reaching over the barrel and pulling, rather than just floundering back and forth along the line and sputtering.

The month started out great for running, too, but the speed run I mentioned earlier, on the 24th, did something to my knee. It hurt badly enough that I decided to take the rest of the month off running. I still had some good runs and made some decent mileage, though. I was on track to hit 100 miles for the first time since October of 2017 — I can't believe it's been that long!!! Oh well. There's always next month.

Not a bad variety of training.

Overall, January shook out to be:

Bike: 13 times, all on the trainer, for 245.5 fake trainer mile in about 16:16. This is a good trainer month for me; 13 sessions seems to be my sweet spot. I have been consistent with using Trainer Road and training with virtual power for more than a year now, and it shows. I haven't done an FTP test in a while and I am dreading it because my hard rides still seem really hard. But I will keep pedaling away one way or the other.

My last 12 months of running. I'm bummed I couldn't stay on the course to 100.

Run: 11 times, 2 on the road and 9 o n the treadmill, for 80.25 miles in about 13:17. I started out the month doing Fast Fridays and a long run on the road on Sunday, or on the treadmill on the next two Mondays when the weather didn't cooperate, and things were feeling fine. I'm not sure if I overdid it on that speed run or the slacking on weights and PT caught up with me or what, since it was the exact one I had done two weeks before. I figured I would rather be safe than sorry and took the last week of the month off running.

Swim: Well, here's a shocker. 5 times, all in the pool, for 5950 yards + 4200 meters (about 6 miles total) in about 4:48. I don't have a good explanation for jumping back into it (wokka wokka) other than I decided to quit being a baby and just do it, and then I just did it.

Weights: 3 times, 2 of my heavy/body sessions and 1 video that I followed with chinup/pullup practice, for 3:35. Eh, not my best month.

PT: 3 times for about 1:45 total. This is probably why it hurts to run lately. I haven't figured out yet what has to go bye-bye in my life to make room for this. I'm working on it.

Yoga: 2 times for about 30 minutes total. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Working this into my week has always been a challenge for me.

Total: 37 sessions in about 40:11. Just looking at this, it was a great month! And I'm not disappointed with the month, really. I just wish I had more time to do more training ... like I do every single month of my life.

Like I said, I had lots of victories and I'm not disappointed. February is already off to a good start, and the groundhog didn't see his shadow, so hopefully spring weather (outdoor running weather!) will be on its way soon.