My First Victory of the Year (Thank You, Happy Legs!)

Another race in the books (the Trick or Trot 10k), and I’ve finally recorded my first victory of the year: first place in 36:29, which I’m pretty happy about for multiple reasons.

1.) It’s my fastest 10k.
2.) I feel I definitely could have gone faster—under 36:00—as I shut it down early knowing I had the win in-hand.
3.) My legs felt great—they were strong and still responding well.

Continuing with the legs discussion, I couldn’t be happier with how well they’ve been holding up. Over the last couple of years, I’ve had both good and bad training periods—sometimes a day or two of strong running followed by heavy-leggedness (at its worst), and sometimes a week or two before the eventual sluggishness. The last two months, I’ve had a single day wherein my legs were lethargic and disallowed me from running the speed and/or distance I’d set out to do. One day in sixty. And no pain throughout. I just hope this keeps up as I increase my mileage and speed, both of which I intend to do (carefully!).

Speaking of increases in mileage, October’s monthly mileage total came in at 161.23 miles, compared to the previous month’s 125.39 (an increase of nearly 29%, which may be a bit ambitious, though much of that increase comes from the 33.25-mile FATS 50k). After only 61.68 miles in August (my Burning River recovery month), I am very comfortable with and confident in my mileage swell. With another 50k (the Mad Marsh) looming this month, I’m thinking nearly 200 miles is likely. I want to start being at 200 consistently, so what better time than now?

Also, Happy (late) Halloween to you all—I hope you had fun…



…while Calli would rather put her own eye out than see you have fun (sometimes you have to save her from herself). For shame, Calli—FOR SHAME!