The 2013 season is underway

Chad and I were out of town this weekend for the Burlington Chilly Half Marathon. We did this race once before, in 2011. Last year I was sidelined by pneumonia and running it was the furthest thing from my mind, but this year I have been relatively healthy, and it seemed like good incentive to stay in shape until spring.

Of course, these things always sound fun in advance, and then Jan and Feb and the reality of training in the winter set in. For about six weeks I totally lost my outdoor running mojo and I spent many hours on the treadmill instead. Fortunately this period of time coincided with me discovering 'Breaking Bad' on DVD and I watched five seasons worth of TV in about six weeks, including several long runs that consisted of multiple episodes back to back to back. In fact there was a week or two when I was ready to blow off my long run altogether but then I would get a new DVD and be so looking forward to watching it that my run got added back to my calendar.

Anyway, the point of this race for me is just getting to the starting line. I hold no illusions that it's going to be a PR. I had a bad race, relatively speaking; I just didn't feel as good or strong as I did at my last. The funny thing is that I was only about 45 seconds slower today than I was in Detroit. That's me; no matter how good or bad of a day I am having, I really only have one pace.

The weekend as a whole was a success though. We had to be in Burlington for packet pick-up by 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon, and the rest of the day was ours... kid-free. We went to IKEA to pick a few things up, then swung by a mall where we were free to browse without kids whining about wanting to go home. We enjoyed a nice dinner at a restaurant without a children's menu and then back in our hotel room, we ordered two movies that we have been wanting to see and never managed to get out of the house for while they were at our local theatre. And after the race, I indulged in one of my very favourite limited-time-only treats. It was easy to justify after finishing 13.1 miles: