Admitting Defeat

I've tried really hard to keep running outside this winter. Really, I have. But when faced with the coldest December I've seen since moving here, plus record levels of snow, it's been pretty difficult. Today we're warming up to 24 degrees (heat wave!) just to plummet back down to the single digits until after Christmas.

That's depressing.

I've been running on my treadmill, but it's just not the same when you're training for a race. I decided that I'd just run the 10K instead of doing the half marathon since I've not had the training time I feel is necessary. I also unpleasantly discovered that race organizers changed the packet pick-up time on New Year's Eve, and they seem to be pretty unorganized as a whole. To put it mildly, I've had a bad taste in my mouth for the Polar Dash for a few weeks now.

So I finally decided yesterday to scrap the whole thing. Our hotel was fully refundable, and we'll save on the gas money to get down there and cost of eating out. I'm looking at my $50 entrance fee as a nice donation to the Shriner's Hospital in St. Paul.

Instead, we're going to utilize our planned babysitter (sister-in-law) and go out for a nice dinner. This time of year, I realized that I don't want to be in training mode. I want to be in the "eat all kinds of holiday foods, drink wine, be merry, and work it off on the treadmill" mode. Yes, the treadmill is boring. Yes, I'd rather be outside. But it's not necessary. I'm sure I don't have to rationalize this to you, oh dear blog reader. You probably thought I was crazy from the beginning.

I do plan on hitting the streets again once it warms up a little more. So, maybe March? I'm already signed up for a 5K at the end of April. I won the entry for raising a bunch of money for the same race/organization last year. You can't beat free! There are a couple of other races I'm looking at doing next year, (Grandma's half in June and the St. Louis Rock n'Roll half in October) but for now, I just want to relax a little and enjoy the holidays.

3 more days until my parents get here!