Inspiration and cross training

My little sister is an inspiration. For a while now, she's been a gym rat, religiously attending her daily workout sessions at her preferred health club. At first it was to help her lose some weight, and now that she's successfully reached her goal, she's moved on to new things. Like running a half marathon in April. I've run a half marathon - it was fun but training for it was a bear. And I trained outside, where it was sunny and the air was fresh. My sister's pounding her miles out on a treadmill, a machine I despise. One of the least pleasant running experiences in my life occurred when I ran on a treadmill. I admire her grit and determination, and also recently decided I would benefit from taking a page out of her playbook. Not that I'm going to be running any half marathons, but just easing myself back into shape.

Syracuse is experiencing a true winter thus far this year. Snow came in early December to stay. I haven't seen my front lawn since then, which is the way I like winter to be. Since I got sick in mid-January, my already pretty inactive life (aside from my .3 mile walk to work) got even less active. This past weekend, though, I felt well enough to get out for a bit of xc skiing - 18 miles over two days. Monday I was a sore, slow man but felt refreshed. However, I can't get to a xc trail every day, and the roads are too treacherous for a ride, so I bit the bullet and got myself some properly fitted running shoes. A twenty minute run on Tuesday left me giddy. A rest day yesterday, and today 25 minutes. Not as giddy, but still feeling really well. And the pain I usually have with running? Not there. So thank you, sis, for inspiring an old guy to get off his duff. Good luck in April - I know the pain, and elation, you will experience. And if I can keep up the running, I'll be in better shape for when the trails open up this spring!

Miles run so far: 2.2 Tuesday, 2/1, 2.2 Thursday 2/3