a newfound aspect of training

Despite the airplane's best attempts to keep me away, I've finally made it home after eight days of traveling the south east part of the country. We visited our first meadery, lounged on the beach, rode the intertubes at Schlitterbahn, people watched at the airport, watched the next generation exchange vows, toured a farm, visited a Civil War grave site, did a little beekeeping (yes, you read that right), and ate too many cupcakes. What we did NOT do a lot of, is training, and it was.... wait for it. Wonderful! I did one early morning self-practice yoga session on the beach, and Matt and I did get in a nice 4.7 mile adventure run on some pretty technical trails (pictured below) we found, but that's it. The thing is, I'm not worried about it. In fact, I was just about to write that I'll call this a 'rest week', but for the first time in a long, long while (maybe since I first began running), I don't feel compelled to label my downtime. Not even label, really.... justify it with a label. I read a lot of my Relentless Forward Progress book and studied a lot of the Rock Creek Runner blog, simply because that's what I wanted to do. In retrospect, I think that's what would have served me best these past eight days and I'll likely continue with this 'whatever I feel like doing' program, while channeling all of the information I'm compiling into mental preparedness. The 24 week plan leading up to the 100 miler officially starts one week from today, and at the moment, as I lie here typing this out, I feel like I may actually have a smooth transition into it.

Stay tuned...