2.09.2015

Looking Back: January

Although January is a symbol of a new year, and you can essentially wipe clean the slate and start over, it is still one of  my least favorite months. Luckily I live in a place without snow or extreme cold, which means I am still able to go outside each day to run or hike, but for some reason, I am always a little bit glad when the month is over.

Running: The month started off great, with a New Year's day run with friends, a marathon Fat Ass on the first weekend, and many other great days out on the trails. Since I am training for a few upcoming races, I am supposed to be running roughly 50 - 60 mile weeks, and I was on track for that. Unfortunately, mid month I sprained my ankle and was unable to run for the last couple of weeks of the month. I ended up with about 189 miles for the month (out of approximately 275 total planned miles).

Reading: Due to not running as much, it allowed me to step up my reading game a bit. In January I read 5 books. Actually, all of them were pretty good! My favorite was probably The Tipping Point (4 stars). The other four were:

China Dolls (4 stars) 
Little Big Lies (3 stars)
Goodnight June (4 stars)
Astray (4 stars)

Traveling: I went up to visit my parents for MLK weekend and had a great time hiking and exploring and playing board games with them. I even took the dog and she had so much fun running around off leash, acting like a dog. We also had a salamander hunt, ate Mickey Mouse waffles and ran a few miles on the snowy PCT. In addition to that, I went up to Sonoma county to see the Styx in concert. I haven't seen so many cougars in spandex pants all in one place in a long time!

Exploring with Mom, Dad and Emi


Misc: I was dogsitting a lot in January, so in addition to my running miles, I probably walked an additional 20 miles just by walking the dog twice a day. Also, since I could not run, I took advantage of a sunny day and took a really nice long bike ride around town. It was a lot of fun, although I may need to buy some of those funny padded shorts if I am going to do long rides in the future! My tush was sore the next day!

Alameda bike ride

How was your January? Did it go by quickly or slowly? What is your least favorite month of the year?

6 comments:

  1. This post reminds me that I need to buy some padded shorts for next summer as I went on some longer bike rides in the fall and realized padded shorts are a must!

    My January was ok. It's never my favorite month either. It's cold, dark, and gray here and it just feels like the month stretches on! It went by pretty slowly for me but I did some fun things like going up to my parents for a weekend and going XC skiing. My foot felt off so I ran fewer miles and just felt kind of 'meh'. But it was a productive month for me as I got through all but one of my organizational projects so that is good!

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  2. This month was like theeee slowest month ever.

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  3. hope your ankle is feeling a lot better. I don't adore January because it's the month of pharmacy insurance changes and ensuing drama. I was happy it was over, until Feb rolled around and Medicaid of Louisiana decided that it would be a good idea to change carriers for three of their plans out of the blue. Can't escape.

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  4. I'm sorry about your ankle. Hope you're doing better!

    I think The Tipping Point has been my favorite Malcolm Gladwell book so far.

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  5. Oh no, hope your ankle is healing up! I find that I walk so much because I have a dog. I'm not complaining because it kept me at least doing something while I was pregnant

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  6. January went by sooo slowly for me!

    I have started tracking all of my February workouts in my phone just to count up how many times I worked out in the month but I realized I do not track my dog walks. They aren't much, maybe 2 - 4km (1-2.5 miles) per day, but it does add up I suppose. I just don't really consider them "exercise".

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