Today: 4.0 miles
Week: 4.0 miles
February: 4.0 miles
2010: 82.07 miles

I hate February. The autumn is ok. Leaves changing colors, cool air, my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving. Then December comes and you have Christmas and New Years. Somehow you make it through January with happy thoughts of a new year, new beginning. But February… theres… just nothing. OK, there’s Valentines Day, but as a guy that’s just a big bear trap waiting for me to forget about it and walk right into it and rip my leg off. For the most part, February is just something I grit my teeth for and try to make it through, while thinking about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb.

Running has added a new dimension to this. In December and January, it was kind of fun to get up and be out running at 6 a.m. in the pitch black with sub-freezing temperatures and whipping winds. Well, fun in the sense of, “Wow, this is crazy! I can’t believe I’m out here doing this!” But today I got up and got dressed and just kind of sat there for a good 8 minutes or so, not really wanting to leave my warm, bright living room to go out in the cold darkness.

Eventually I made it out of course. And it really wasn’t that bad. 18ºF, which is cold, but not mind-numbingly so. And actually, there was a tinge of pale yellow-orange on the horizon, and the sky was deep indigo, rather than just black. Perhaps it’s true, the days really are getting longer. By the time I got back, the sun was shining.

The run itself was fine. I was starting to get really worried about my left quads. I think it was bothering me more mentally than physically. Just worried about it messing up my race this coming Sunday. But everything felt pretty good today. Some residual tightness, but far less so than even two days ago on my last run. I did have a couple of twangs in my left knee during the run as well. I think this is probably related to the quad tightness. I’m not going to worry about it, just going to get to and get through this race in 5 days. And after that, only 3 more weeks of February!