Aesthete Runner

In honor of Valentine's day, I bring you my top #RunLove moments of the past year.

One of the best parts of finishing a race is recovering, healing any aches and pains, and then holding on to that fitness base. When I first started running, I would train hard for a race but then ultimately take so much time off afterwards that I would lose most of my fitness. When the next training cycle came along, I would have to start from square one. Over the years I have perfected my art of maintenance between training cycles. I absolutely enjoy taking time off and focusing on other non-running activities, but I also like being able to utilize my fitness base when starting to train for a specific race.

What a week! I started my new job, became a morning runner, and ran one of my longest training runs in a while. Needless to say, I am exhausted! I am still working on balancing a new job, training for my first ultra, and everything else in life, but I know that each week will get easier.

It is already hard to believe that it has been just over 2 weeks since the F^3 Lake Half Marathon. I finally feel like I am fully recovered and have enjoyed some warmer weather runs this week.

February has arrived and I am still running outside. I have made it this far into winter and after training for a half during most of it, I have just about perfected what to wear. As I did at the end of fall with my Fall Edition post , I am going to share some of my favorite winter running pieces that have kept me warm and dry.

After enjoying Austin, Texas the past few days, I think it is safe to say I am officially thawed out and rested after the  F^3 Lake Half Marathon. If you missed my recap, you can read it here .

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?).

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.

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.

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 .