Swing away

When we moved here, the former homeowners -- an elderly couple that had lived here for more than three decades -- left a lot of stuff in the house. Some of it was useful. Most of it was junk (to us anyways).

In the back corner of the basement, we piled up all that was left behind (we were told there was a mishap with their moving crew) in one place and have called that section of our house "The Johnson's Room" for the past 15 months. This week, I finally emptied their room.

Over the past year, we've rid of most of their leftovers, but there was still a huge pile of wood, some other random objects and a huge behemoth of a workbench. Figuring out a way to remove that beast of a bench was my final task.

On Satuday, I did my new routine of waking early, but with no run on the schedule I opted for a slow morning. By early afternoon, I was dragging, so I opted for a quick power nap. During my break from the day, I had a dream that I fetched a sledge hammer from the garage -- the one Mr. Johnson left behind -- and used it to smash apart the workbench.

I woke up and thought, "You know? That's not the worst idea."

What happened next was about 10 minutes of sweating, smashing and unleashing my inner manimal. You want a good workout? Go nuts on an ancient workbench with a sledge hammer. By the end, I was standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by shards, hammer in hand. I couldn't help but let out a yell of satisfaction.

My wife called down to the basement, thinking I was yelling out in pain.

I'm fine, honey. Just letting off some steam.

So that was my Saturday workout. That smashing session, combined with the 20 or so trips up and down the stairs to haul lumber to the curb. Then, I spent an hour on my stationary bike while watching the Saints carve up the Lions' secondary.

For the week, I logged 22 miles, ending with a 7-miler today on a gorgeous day. It topped 50 here in Northeast Ohio. I was running without gloves. I was wearing shorts. I needed sunglasses! It's Jan. 8, for crying outloud.

I planned on 21 miles, but felt good enough to tack on one extra today. Besides, it was a great day to take advantage of the weather. So for the past three weeks -- following a two-week break -- I've increased from 16 miles to 18 miles to 22 miles. I'll aim for 24-26 next week. I'm trying to be smarter about building gradually this time around.

For the past few months, when I'd take a week or two off, I'd jump right back to 25-30 miles my first week back and Lord knows that's not the best way to go about things. I need to be better about having a purpose behind each run and each week's schedule.

All of that said, Week 1 of 2012 is in the books. So is my first weekly wrap blog entry. We'll see if I can keep it up.

~JB