Aesthete Runner

I only have one picture for this week's Trail Tuesday, and it is from the Lakefront path during the race on Saturday. For my race recap, see the previous post.

On Saturday I completed the F^3 Lake Half Marathon and have finally thawed out! In all seriousness, I really enjoyed the race and while cold, the weather was tolerable. For those wanting the quick story, I did not PR but had one of my most consistently paced races to date. Read on for the full details of race day.

Two days until the F^3 Lake Half Marathon. My packet has been picked up, I ran my last shake-out run, and have updated my wardrobe choices several times as the weather has changed. Yes, it will definitely be fucking freezing frozen, as the name of the race indicates (F^3...get it?).

All of the ice melted and caused some major flooding on the trails. That didn't stop some happy geese or myself from getting outside.

The F^3 Lake Half Marathon is just 6 days away. While the weather for Saturday is going to be drastically different from the 58 degrees I enjoyed this past week, I am feeling ready. This taper hasn't "tapered" as much as others right before a race, but I am looking forward to a lighter few days leading up to Saturday.

In the past few posts I have mentioned using the R8 Roll Recovery tool that I received for Christmas . Having used this for almost a month now, I am in love with this roller and want to share my thoughts.

The short thaw we had brought out a few woodland friends for this week's Trail Tuesday:

I am 13 days out from the F^3 Lake Half Marathon and it's taper time! While I still have another week's worth of some challenging strength and tempo runs, I completed my longest run since the marathon in October. It feels good to have that under my belt, especially after the challenging weather this week.

The ice has thawed out and with rising temps, I saw the return of my bird at the start of the new year. While most of the snow has finally melted, we are in for another round soon!

With the conclusion of the Hansons base building plan I have been writing about for 8 weeks, I picked up with the Hansons Beginner Half plan to continue training for the F^3 Lake Half Marathon that I wrote about back in November . While I am no beginner to the half marathon, the Hansons beginner plan is what I previously used to achieve my 6 min half marathon PR last spring, and there is nothing "beginner" about it. I couldn't have picked a better time to pick up the plan as it aligned with the start of Hansons strength workouts. After doing speedwork for the past 8 weeks, it was perfect timing to stop the speed runs and focus more on strength. I discuss the strength workouts in more detail in my Marathon training post here .

Trail Tuesday is back for 2017! After a brief hiatus, I have new photos to post of great scenes from the trails. While most of the snow is currently gone, I still have a few pictures left of some snowy landscapes.

Happy 2017! I made it through the final week of the Hansons 8 Week Base Building Maintenance plan and it coincided with the start of a brand new year.