JANUARY summary

January mileage: 288.3k (180.2miles)
Mileage total (2010): 288.3k
Mileage by weeks:
2-3 10k
4-10 73.5k
11-17 51k
18-24 49k
25-31 104.8

Others:
Bike:4h
Volleyball: 20.5h

January went pretty well. I started to run normally after cca 2 months, because I had IT band problem after Nice Marathon.
My weeks mileages were not too consistent, but it is because I had some problems with quadriceps and also 1 indoor track race so I decreased the mileage.
But I have been improving- started at over5:30 pace for my first runs, last run was 25.6k @ 5:09 pace. So I am getting there.
I started to do some interval workouts and hill workouts in second half of January.
Resolutions: Do more bike and eat better!

Getting there..

Today we had awesome weather. I know that all Europe and the US is covered with snow, but here...sun is shining, birds are singing...almost.
It was still pretty cold but running while sun shines is awesome.
I had 25k planned for today and since it is pretty long I went exploring. I took the path that I already took before but honestly I am little scared running there because it is kinda far from everything and I have never met anyone. But today..I met bikers, huge group of hikers, dog walkers. Just awesome. Then I took a road but I was not entirely sure where it goes. I knew that I were somewhere between Jouy and Versailles but that's about it. I just continued running. I got to Foret de Versailles but I knew that it is huge so I did not want to go there without a map so just kept running on a road. But then I got sick of it because they were doing some repair works on that road and it was just annoying continuing running there. So I followed signs direction Jouy to get back and do some familiar loop.
I did 25.6k @ 5:09 pace which is pretty good. It is still slower than my pre-injury (pre-marathon) pace but I felt good and strong and I am getting there...

I biked for 30min in the evening. I have adventure race with bike part coming up in 2 weeks so I need to prepare. Although I am sure whether it will help just 2 weeks before. We shall see about that.

Changing brand

w/u 4k
3 x 2.1 hill w/ jog to start
c/d 4k
TOTAL: 20k

I woke up and it was snowing. It was not too bad, we did not have a lot of snow but just enough to cover ice on roads. It has been raining the whole day yesterday and everything froze over night. I had hill workout planned for today and I wanted to do it on one of those steep long streets in a nearby town, which was of course not possible to do in these conditions.
But as I was eating breakfast, sun started to shine and all clouds were gone and I saw that the snow was starting to melt. We have not seen sun for few weeks now, so I was pretty excited about that and decided to try to do my hill workout on trails because roads were too slippery.
I ran 4k to trails and did some stretching. I have run this hill once before, I knew it was not too steep but long and my plan was to do 3 hills with jog recovery inbetween. I started pretty conservative because I did not know what to expect and it turned out pretty well. I got to the top in 8:35 and Mr. Garmin showed the distance as approximately 2k. Well, that's long enough...
1ST hill: 8:35
jog down in approx 10:35.
2ND hill: 8:22 I started little faster this one but I met bunch of kids on ponies close to the end and since I was coming from behind I slowed down because I did not want to freak out those ponies and cause the tragedy. I jogged slowly along them when suddenly they turned left and crossed my path. So I had to stop, I stopped the watch and waited until they passed. Noone cared about me standing there and it would have been so simple to stop one pony and let me pass through. I finish the rest of hill but was pretty pissed.
3RD hill: 8:14 I felt awesome and really strong on this one. I knew I was running faster that the first two but it felt better and easier than the second one. BUT I met kids on horses this time at the same place:) This time they were coming towards me so I did not have to slow down as much as before but I still decrease the speed because you never know what can happen. I finished strong.
I jogged to the start of the hill and then 4k back to school.
Trail runs are so much fun and I enjoy running on trails so much therefore I have decided to do the 16k trail race April 11. It is the same day as Paris Marathon which I wanted to watch but I would rather run a race.

After making this big decision, I went to the mall to get some proper trail sneakers (and some extra chunky Skippy peanut butter Made in USA!!!). I got New Balance shoes (because they were 40% off).
I am Asics and Adidas girl but 40% off is 40% off. I have never had NB before so I am excited to try them.
I had always used Adidas before coming to the US. But I soon realized that they are not very good for road running and for long distances because they seem to be harder and I feel to have better "push" on track with them but they made me feel tired sooner when running on road. In Slovakia, Adidas were perfect because I never ran on roads and basically did track workout 4-5 times a week and my mileage was like one third of what I did at Brown. So I changed the brand and used Adidas for track workout and Asics for long runs and have sticked with this until now. Now it's time to try something new...Balance

By the way, mall is like 9k from school. So on top of those 20k running this morning, I also walked another 20k (to the mall, in the mall and back to school). I did 40k today!!!

Good day

Today was a good day. My stats final was pretty easy (but let's wait for a final grade before jumping into conclusions) and my seminar was canceled. Cool.
I ran 14k very easy but the weather was horrible: rain and wind, but I still had fun. My legs are little sore from yesterday. But it's nice to feel soreness when you know that's because you did a good workout. Yesterday and today I have not used a supportive bandage for my knee and this has been the first time since November. I did not feel any pain or tension but I am going to use it for long runs and when I know that I will run downhill a lot because downhills do not feel very comfortable for my knee yet.
I did 30min on bike in the evening in my room while watching a movie. I did not want to do more because it might be little too much on my quands.

Rough day

Today was crazy. I went to sleep at 1:30am and woke up at around 8:30, ate breakfast and started to study for my tomorrow's exam. But....I started to fall asleep so I let it go and slept for 2 hours. When I woke up it was time to go to running practice.

We did the same stuff as on Tuesday but the internals were twice as long. We did 6 x 4loops w/ one loop jog recovery. Each loop is around 33-350m long, is on grass and has one pretty steep shortish hill. I did 5:43, 5:41, 5:41, 5:35, 5:28 and 5:24. I thought I would die after 3, but I felt really amazing and am glad I managed to do negative splits. Although I felt my quads to the end. I feel that I am getting there, I just need to be consistent and do not get injured.

From running practice I sprinted back to my room to change and went to volleyball match. I played the whole match and I can say that I had my bright moments:) We lost, but unfortunately not because they were better but because we did so many stupid mistakes. I feel that we should train harder if we want to be better, but well.. here... sports are not one of the priorities.But we have some players that are really good and are working on themselves. And I am getting there....

Because of some technical problems at Ecole Polytechnique where we had played the match, I missed my Spanish class....I need to send email to professor.

And now it is time to start studying. It might be a long night!

Nothing new...

Our campus recruitment has continued today and I have talked to the company that organizes Tour de France, Vuelta en Espana, Paris Marathon and all that kind of staff. I am hoping I can get a summer internship with them to do some Tour marketing or preparation/organization. Keep your fingers crossed!

I was really tired today. I did not sleep well and my mood is not that great in general. I forced myself to do an easy 8,5k recuperation run. It was really slow run and I did not felt that bad.
Then I wanted to try to fall asleep to get some rest before volleyball practice but I could not.
Fortunately for me, our coach could not come so we had only assistant coach and therefore practice was not too harsh. But still, it was 4 hours. And I did abs and push-up at the end and I think that the others think I am crazy or close (well, they told me so I know they think so. Well I know that people think that I am that crazy girl who does not have many friends and does not go to any party, and who runs every day and has a bike in her dorm room). Weirdly, I do not feel as tired as I felt during the day. But that's probably all the blood circulating faster.

Tomorrow: no school, only running practice, which I have to leave earlier in order to get to volleyball match on time!

HEC campus

I have decided to post couple photos of our campus so you can all get jealous:

My dorm....it's pretty new and nice (and expensive). My window is on the second floor, second from the right.




We have such 3m high fence all around the campus. Sometimes I wonder what it used to be before they made it a school...




This tree is pretty cool...Some kind of a sequoya.




Our sport fields in "plein nature"




Yes, we have a lake on campus




Track and rugby field (no turf as you can see...)




One more of a track...



So what do you think???

Intervals

Went for our school practice today. Well, it is more like a PE class, nothing like hard-core school track practices in the US. But still, at least I run with people.
And about our coach. He is a very successful....throws coach. He has coached some French champions and still coaches a guy who is a European champion in javelin throw under 23 and in general one of the best javelin throwers in Europe. He is kinda weird, very noisy, has couple piercings and always wears a hat. That javelin thrower I mean, not our coach. And he broke his knee last year but I do not know how and I am not really sure what "breaking" a knee means. I do not want to ask him because he might be too sensitive about it. But he is ok now.
But anyway, our coach is not that great running coach and he makes us do weird stuff, especially before races, that exhausts us. And I feel that he does not really know what a good time for a specific distance is. But otherwise he is very nice. He called a special clinic in Paris to get me an appointment when I had IT band problems.

We were only three today because we have recruitment days going on and everyone went to talk to companies and to get get some internships offers. But French companies do not really interest me, so I did not spend there much time. I talked to Renault only and might talk to Peugeot and a company that organizes Tour de France, Paris marathon and other huge French sport events tomorrow.
We had dome some weight training yesterday at volleyball practice and my butt is sore therefore I knew it would not be awesome running day today. I warmed up and then we did some intervals with jogging in between. Intervals were not that long, I guess 650-700m (2x 330-350m loop+ loop recovery)but they were on grass with a pretty steep hill in each loop. We did 6, they were not that bad, it was "speedier" workout in a long time, I felt good but my butt...Then we did 5k cool down on a hilly terrain. And my butt is even sorer now and I do not expect it to get better because I need to run tomorrow and then 4hour long volley practice.

And something not related to my butt: I have Statistics final Friday, so I should start studying but I am soooo lazy.

Oh yeah, Mad, you would love this: I made 10Euros today participating in an experiment about decision making related to renewable energies business project. I know that you used to make cash by doing this kind of a stuff at Brown:)

Intense-course-of-a-geniality...

Like every Monday past month, I wake up, eat breakfast, go to statistics class, run, statistics lab, volleyball.
But today was better than past Mondays because today was the last day of our intense-courses-of-a-geniality-period - that's what I call classes that we have for 2-3weeks couple hours every day and we need to learn what is otherwise learnt during one semester. So my intense-course-of-a-geniality/statistics is over now, Friday= final exam.
And normal classes start on Monday. I can't wait (meant ironically of course!!!).

I did 13,5k run today, and I felt good after yesterday's 22k. I tried to stay on flat surface today though, which meant that I run in the neighborhood and then took a bike path that goes along a highway for 3k (and 3k back). Not the best running path ever, but the only flat place around. My legs started to feel sore immediately after the run. And what's weird is that it went away during my statistics lab. I went there with sore quadriceps and came back like "new'. Cool.

Then I went to volleyball practice. It is usually rough on Mondays but it was not intense at all today. Just chill-out- 2- hour-long practice (9-11pm).

I am little tired though so I guess I will sleep "tight" this night.

"You can only do two out of three things well. School, Party, or Run. Pick TWO!!!"

Just thought to post it 'cos it is so cool...

Just another Sunday

Like every Sunday, I wake up, have breakfast (2 mini baguettes, butter, 2 cups of tea, 1 cup of milk- every day, there is nothing else in our dining hall for breakfast) and go for a long run.

I wanted to do around 22k with 6x30s pick-ups and surprise- I did. I did not go exploring this time so I did not end up doing more. It was a nice run although weather was horrible- rain, no rain, rain, no rain. I met surprisingly a lot of runners and bikers, considering the weather. I started on road but my right IT band bothered me a little, so I did some trails as well. They were pretty muddy, but not too bad. I stayed there for only about 3k because I had to head back if I did not want to do more than 22.

My pace was pretty decent considering weather, trails, mud and hills (oh, those horrible hills here...), average 5:22min/k. Still slower though than what I used to go before the IT band injury.
But I have realized that I am soooo slow on trails. Even if I tried to keep the same pace and it felt like I was, I went considerably slower when not on a road. I know that it is normal, but still. I need to do something about it before those trail races I would like to do.

These is one awesome 16k (or 35k, but I prefer the shorter one) trail race organized by the town I am in now, but the problem is that it is on the same date as Paris marathon. Not that I want to run Paris marathon (I did ran 2 marathons and my IT band got messed up both times), but I wanted to go to watch because it is fun. I need to decide. But I might choose trail race.

Weekly mileage:
run: 49k
bike: 1h
volleyball: 8h (practices + match)

Volleyball match

We had Coupe de France volleyball match today. We were supposed to be at least 9 and only 5 girls showed up. The we called all people we knew to persuade someone to come to play. One girl finally agreed to came, yupiii.
This was definitelly good for me, because since we had only 6 players, I was playing. I am not sure whether I would have played much otherwise (I know I would have played, but not the whole match), because I am still little confused about our positions and how we change and basically I am not that great.
But I was ok, apart from my service, that was horrible. But well, I am not a hard-core volleyball player. And I need a lot of practice.
But the most important thing is that we won 3:1. Next match is 4th of Feb.

I need to go to Paris this afternoon to meet with one guy from my adventure race team. I am waiting for his call and I do not think I can get in a run...

Indoor meet

I ran 1500m indoors today. It was ok. I do not have any speed therefore I was not able to change the pace or have stronger finish. And because I am not used to run such races and did not know what to expect, I chilled out as usually. I just did not want it to hurt, so I was careful. I run 45s for each 200m. Time 5:33,35 (few seconds were caused by the fact that I had to run more than 1 lap in line 2-3 because I am so "fairplay" and I left the 1st line for the guy who doubled me by one lap :) Did I mentioned I was the mascot of a race, because I was the only girl???!!!

Come on, I am runnig for fun and I do not want to push myself really and I do not want it to hurt. For now. I will see how it goes later. Maybe I will be able to push myself a little. I do not remember the last time when I ran a race and it hurt...

I know I should start doing some VO2Max work and other faster stuff, not only the long slow runs. We have 10k race on 18th of March (if I heard it right today) so I will try to work a little bit harder and I will try to prepare more adequate training.

Speed will be also good for volleyball because I am sooo slow. Last week we practiced the blocks and I did it with one guy (really cute one, one of the best looking guys I have ever seen. I swear.) and he was already on the other site of the court while I was still only preparing for my jump:) Literally!!! But I guess that I would have to do sprints to be fast enough for volleyball...

By the way. My plan did not work out. I did not play the match today. Was not able to get there on time, so I had to go to Spanish class.

I am lazy...

I did not run today. No special reason. Just laziness.
But I had 4hours long volleyball practice. Our "head" coach was not there, only assistant coach so it was not too intense.

I feel good for tomorrow. Little stressed out. Because I AM not prepared and there is no women's 1500m race, only men's and I am going to run with them. And they will expect me to be very good since I have a courage to run with them but I will not be good at all!!!

I have been contacted by some guys from different school in Paris regarding the adventure race, because they need one girl on their team, so it is on a right way! But I have just learnt that we have volleyball tournament on IBIZA island at the same time...But we would have to pay for plane ticket, so I guess I would not be able to go there anyway.

Thursday will be awesome, just awesome

Weather is horrible today..fog, wind, not too cold though.

Yesterday I got back to my room after volleyball practice at around 11:30pm as expected, then shower, snack and bed.
So we have volleyball match BOTH Thursday and Saturday! That's the worst case scenario that I have not even imagined. But I brilliantly solved it (although I will see Thursday whether is it really as brilliant as I think it is).

Our running coach takes us to the meet on his car and then he drives us back, I asked him whether he can drop me off at school we have this match. And he has agreed. Although I am not sure whether we will get there on time because afternoon traffic in Paris is no fun, no fun at all.
Keep you fingers crossed. (Note: And I will miss my Spanish class, but I do not care, I just want to pass and get out of here!!!)

I did some drills today and then run for an hour with one girl and it was really slow run, I guess we did something like 9k in that one hour. But I did not mind, I need to get some rest for Thursday.


I have found yesterday this cool adventure race for students (running, bikes, kayak, hiking etc) and I am trying to find someone willing to team with me. I hope I can find 3 more people, because it will be so much fun!!!

It will be hard...

This week will be hard.

Our school "running coach" (more about that later) want some of us to go to indoor meet on Thursday... He knows that I am not prepared (and I am definitely not!!!), but he wants me to run 1500m to kind of find out my VO2max.

Well, but it might be that we have volleyball match on Thursday as a part of a qualification for Coupe de France...
So I do not know. Normally I would prefer runnig. I am a better runner than volleyball player (although I believe that if I had started soon enough and had continued with it, I might have been much better volleyball player than I am a runner) , but I am just soooo not prepared for the 1500m race.
I do not know what to do!!!

Let just keep my fingers crossed that the match will be on Saturday, not Thursday. That way, it is solved.

I went for easy run this afternoon. I wanted to do max 11k, because I have volleyball practice in the evening (and race on Thursday and match on Saturday ...and school work of course. Always forgetting that. No wonder I have almost failed one class.), so I did not want to exhaust me too much.
As usually, I went exploring new paths and ended up doing 13,5k. I tried to go harder last 2k, in low 4:20s/km and it felt pretty good, easy.
But I am so stupid. Why did I do that? I am starting to feel my muscles getting sore. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I am tired. I might take a nap. I have 2-hour long statistics lab and at 9pm (imagine that! 9pm!!!) volleyball practice. So it will be after midnight when I get to bed.

Last week:

Week January 11-17:

Running: 51k (30miles)

Bike: 0 :( (to make sure my quadriceps is ok)

Volleyball: cca 4 hours

Just like spring!!!

Sunday= long run day.
When I woke up (at around 9:22 and it was already too late for breakfast in our dining hall) snow was gone, sun was shining and birds singing. Almost. But no snow and sun was shining. I ate a kiwi as my breakfast and went out for a 16k run. I did 17k last Sunday, but wanted to do only 16 today just to make sure my knee and quadriceps are ok.
After first 500m I had to take my jacket off because it was really warm.
I met a surpisingly a lot of runners today, probably because of a weather. I decided to do a 8k loop through Val d'Albian et Bievres that I found last week. I realized today that it is in fact a bike path, which I could not see before because it was covered by snow. It is a pity that it is a pavement, it could have been such a cool running path. But it is still very nice. At the end of the loop there is the forest I was talking about in one of my previous posts with a very steep hill. Because it has been raining for past few days, I could not go there, because it will not possible to run up those hills in a mud. So I took the road through Val d'Albian. The road is even more hilly then the forest. I knew that, I had already done it couple times, but I am always stunned when I reach the beginning of the hill and look up. It goes from approx 90m a.s.l. to 160m a.s.l., the length is approx 700m. See the map below, click to enlarge.
Because I still had like 8k to go I followed the other bike path. And because I wanted to know where it goes, I followed it until I have reached one of the roads that I already knew and where I was on a bike. I did not want to run on road with cars, therefore I turned around and took the same path back. I ended up doing 19k :(
But it was still cool. I felt really good, was not too tired, no pains.

I hope this nice weather lasts longer, although it is not very likely since it is only a middle of January.

I messed it up only twice- both to our advantage!

Because I live in the middle of nowhere and I am not a huge fan of sightseeing (and I have already seen everything worth seeing in Paris) and shopping (huge sales in France! But I am already all set- I already got new sneakers) and it has been raining since morning, it looked like I will be bored to death by sleep time.
But then I remembered that our men's volleyball team was scheduled to play two Coupe de France matches today so I decided to go and watch cute volleyball players. No, what am I saying? I decided to go and watch the MATCHES. It was fun, but I was the only spectator:(

Since I was the only person not playing (except for the referee), I was given the task of assigning points on the score board. Wow, such a responsibility. I messed it up only twice and added a point or two to our team instead of to our opponents but referee has never missed my mistake. Then I did not know how to correct the thing and that added to a general confusion since one of our players had to stop playing and come to me and show me how to correct the scores.
At the end, the players have offered me a beer and a cake for my hard (but unsuccessful) attempts to help them win the match by messing up a score board. I do not drink beer so they have shared mine among themselves. Certain coach L... would not like that at all! (It's one of 3 "forbidden" Bs)! Well, the truth is, that I did not like that neither. Drinking beer and eating cake right after the match??? What kind of sportsmen are they?

I did not run yesterday because I still felt my quadriceps and I started to have a strange unpleasant feeling in my right knee, as if my injury had been coming back.
I think it was wise not to run yesterday, because today I did not feel a thing!!! So psyched! So I went out for an easy 7k run in a rain...

Day off, kinda

My quadriceps did not feel that great this morning, so I decided not to run today and walk only instead. I went to buy some groceries to Versailles. One might say, going to the grocery store is not a big deal and cannot be considered as a training, but here it is. Because the store is 10k away!!! We have one general store approximately 1mile from campus, but if I want to get something else, I need to go to Versailles or Velizy and going 10k there and 10k back with full backpack is a training.
Of course I can take a bus or RER, but....why would I do that, if I can get a nice 20k walk??? Crazy? Maybe.

So today I did 20k walk and then some stretching and lifting.

Will try to run tomorrow.

Doing something different

I went for an easy (as usually, of course) run in our campus (we have lake and forest on campus, isn't it just awesome?!?), but I started to feel a sharp pain in my left quadriceps in about 3k. Since it did not improve with running (and I also wanted to go to play volleyball in the evening), I did 6.5k and then walk back to campus 1.7k.
Volleyball practice was fun and also good on my body. It is nice to do something different from running, meet people (and some cute volleyball players). I went for "loisir" practice for non-competing players where we did more technical stuff and then stayed for a real "competition" practice. Totaling for more than 4 hours volleyball, and it is past 11pm now.
Well, my left quadriceps has not improved will all digs and jumps (what have I expected?) and what's more I have started to feel the same pain in my right quadriceps. I assume it is because I did too much "legs training" yesterday (hills, and then squats (it is squad or squat,hm. I am too lazy and tired to look it up) and stuff) and did not recover properly.

I might not run tomorrow if I still feel the pain in the morning.

Hilly hills

I went for an easy 1h long run at around 11am. I did not felt that great but started to feel better after around 35minutes and picked up a pace a little. But not for long! I entered this forest/park/whatever close-by. So far I did not have a chance to run there therefore I decided to run a loop there to see how it is. Man it was hilly. Well, only one hill but what a hill! Really steep and loooong, I was fried by the time I got to the top. Then there was a short flat piece and downhill. I still had couple minutes left to finish my hour, so decided to do the loop again and see whether the hill was really that bad or whether I just imagined it. No, not imagining it, it is long and steep.

I am sure I can get some good hill workouts there as soon as snow melts, because now it is just too slippery to try to run faster.

I was really tired after this and was struggling to keep my eyes open and not to fall asleep, but I had promised to running club president that I will come to the lifting session at 2pm. I went, but it was not that great because weight room was crowned by rugby players so we stayed in one of the fitness rooms and did some drills, some power exercises and stretching. My legs are starting to be sore. Will take it very slowly tomorrow.

"One foot in front of the other", in everything!

I have planned on running this morning before my classes and then do bike in my room afterwards. But when I woke up it was still dark out :( Then I figured (more like persuaded myself) that I can get a run between statistics course and 5-hour long negotiation methods seminar.
I only did a 8k fun snow run between them because a professor kept us longer.

Then I realized that I got a very (very very) bad grade from one of my classes from last semester and I do not understand why (I have never in my life got such a bad grade!)! So I spend evening trying to figure out whether I failed and will be kicked out of school, and trying to find out why I got this grade since I have expected an A or B and then I needed to cry my heart out to someone. I did not fail (but am very close), and I am still hoping that my prof had made a mistake (which is not very likely). But it is very likely that I will not be able to get into major I was hoping to get into, since here they choose students for their majors according to their academic record:( But I will remember "one foot in front of the other" (metaphorically of course since I am not leaving school, yet. I am still waiting for one last grade...Keep your fingers crossed!) and will take it one step after another and see how it works out!

And now it is really late, but I am going to do at least 30min on a bike. I will try to double tomorrow since I do not have any classes.

Where to start

I have decided to start writing my own (running) blog because I would like to have something to look back at and read through and because I am too bored and this seems like a nice way to kill free time.

I start with some short feedback:
I am doing MSc in Management at business school in France, near Paris and time I do not spend studying, reading, preparing reports, presentations, audit projects, problem sets etc I like to spend by running and biking.
I do not mind living in the middle of nowhere (in the middle of forests and fields more precisely) because there are so many awesome running forest trails and other running and biking paths...
I got injured (IT band syndrome) while training for Paris marathon in April last year and then could not run for more than 4 months (I knew my IT band was bad and that I would not be able to finish it, but I did not want to miss the experience. So I did 20miles and then the pain became unbearable, so I just had to stop and walk the remaining distance to finish line with the runners because I did not know where the hell I was, which did not help my IT band at all, not at all).
I did a lot of road biking over summer (used bike to go to work, so did more than 40miles daily) and start running again in late August. Then I ran Nice-Cannes marathon in early November (which was cool and surprisingly easy!!! run; I should have gone much faster but I did not know where I stood after injury and long time off) and then got the IT band problem again:( So have not run since and started again last week on Sunday January 3rd.

Because my school schedule is very easy for January and I have a lot of free time, I got in some very decent runs this week and was able to explore the countryside even more and I have found few very cool runs!

I will do a 10k race sometime in April and I wish to get some decent time (although I do not know what a decent time would mean at this point).
And I would like to do some local short races as well and was thinking about doing Xterra race (or regular triathlon) over summer, but it all depends on where I will be doing my internship.

We have snow, but not too much and I have realized that I love running in snow. Probably because I can blame snow and slippery roads for my slow pace...
Anyway, did 17k today, first part on a road, then some great trails in a nearby forest (pretty hard, but still awesome). I feel good. Little sore this week (well, I start running after almost 2 months off) but I am sure it will get only better and better.

Weekly mileage: 75k (47miles)
2h bike
2,5h volleyball