High Five

This week I've taken a slightly new approach, running every day and logging five miles each time. So, today is Friday and I'm up to 20 miles this week with another fiver coming tonight when Kell gets home from work. I've been running on the track at the gym, which I haven't minded so much.

The only nuissance is having to count the laps -- 75 is five miles. If I lose count, though, I just go with the lower of the two numbers I'm debating to make sure I cover the distance. My plan right now is to log at least 30 miles a week until I head to Florida for Spring Training. Once there, back in some lovely weather, I can take to running outside again more often.

My running over the holidays back home in Chicago went OK. I didn't do as well as I planned, but I didn't abandon the routine altogether. My first week down there was fine. I finished up a 30-mile week with a 4-miler outside and a 3-mile easy run at a local rec center. The following week, I opened with a 7 mile run on a route I used to run with the cross country team back in high school and I did another 4-mile run outside through town. After that, well, I took to knocking off the must-eat restaurants off my to-do list.

So I had about a week off and had put 4-5 pounds back on by the time I headed back to Toronto (in our new car! We bought a 2008 red VW Jetta while back home). For me, though, 4-5 pounds is easy to knock off and I'm already back to where I was after 20 miles logged this week and a return to more normal eating habits. I just couldn't NOT eat Chicago pizza, go to my favorite Thai place or get some really good Mexican food. I'm only human.

Today, i will eclipse the 200-mile mark for running since I came home this winter. I'm at 196 miles in the 78 days I've been home -- good for 2.51 miles per day. If I succeed at running 30 miles/wk until I depart for Tampa, my winter average will be almost exactly 3 miles per day since I started this offseason program. So, that's something to shoot for.

I wasn't able to shell out a bunch of money for the fancy shmancy Garmin watch I wanted for Christmas, but I did find something that will work. I had about 270,000 Marriott points stored up and I found the Garmin Forerunner 50 available for 65,000 points or something. It comes with the heartrate monitor and foot pod -- the latter of which I'll use more. So I ordered it -- thanks MLB.com! -- and should have it soon.

The watch can track my distance and time and that's pretty much all I'm concerned with. It'll be nice to just hit the road running without wonering how far I've gone, though the google maps pedometer is a big help. Anyways, that's my update for today. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years.

And why can't people come up with better resolutions than to get in shape? It's really making my gym too crowded these days. I'll be happy when the weaklings return to their couches.