My horse done ran off...

...which made it hard to get back on. Yeah, I'm fessing up to a poor showing on the running front this week. In fact, it was exactly the worst running week I've had since the baseball season ended. Even when I took five days off a few weeks ago, I managed to log 14 miles on the weekend.

This week, I started off fine with four miles on Monday, but then things got out of hand. I took my normal off day on Tuesday (when I had a company Christmas party in New York) and Wednesday I got sidetracked with baseball's tender deadline. I was waiting up late, past midnight, to find out one of the Jays pitchers was let go. On Thursday, and carrying over into Friday, I was swamped after the Mitchell Report came out.

Making matters worse, the Jays signed a pair of players on the Friday, and I wound up writing three stories that day. My excuse on Saturday? Well, I have four assignments due on Monday and I used Saturday as a work day. That's my long run day. Yeah, didn't happen. I did, however, come across a motivational link on the Runner's World Web site.

Lame as it sounds, this article convinced me to salvage my week with a run on Sunday -- not to start over on Monday. So, I squeezed in a seven-mile run tonight (five on the treadmill in 40 minutes flat and two on the track). I had looked up a 10-mile route outside, but God sent a crazy snow storm swirling over Toronto. So that put the kaybosh on any outside activities.

The weather, combined with my constantly fighting boredom while running hamster-style at the gym, has made me start to rethink my current program. I've been building up distances and increasing my long runs each week. That's all well and good, but the fact of the matter is the marathon I plan on running isn't until October.

So, I'm thinking of going back to logging 3-7 miles a day maybe six days a week. I can start with a easy three-miler early in the week and gradually build up to 5-7 miles by the end of the week with a recovery day or two, if I need it, in the middle. That'd put me at 20-plus miles a week, which would be a solid average, and would be very doable indoors. Any more than seven miles on a treadmill and I start going stir crazy.

I don't think this will be too bad, considering I'll be heading down to Florida in mid-February. So, I can log a consistent amount of miles until I leave for warmer weather, and then start building up the long runs again during Spring Training. I'd like to run outdoors, but Toronto is not playing along.

I also weighed myself following my run tonight and I was at 160 even. So, I took a week off, basically, had a beer or seven at the Christmas party in the Big Apple, ate a pizza this week, had homemade tacos, and sat in front of a laptop for hours on end, and I lost weight?! Hmmm, maybe I should stick to this new beer-and-pizza weight-loss plan. Ha. Maybe it was all that Wii I played this week during work breaks.

I also am lame and receive daily quotes from Runner's World. One I've liked so far and saved is this one: "Any idiot can train himself into the ground; the trick is working in training to get gradually stronger." Amen.