January: the good, the bad, & the ugly.

My name is Joshua Pauley. And I’m not sure how I feel about the month of January.

This past week I have been vacationing in Newport Beach, California.  Which was great. Beautiful views. Perfect weather. The only thing that was missing was the trails. But getting to go to Disney Land made up for that. 

A great week of training. Took care of business and nailed everything. I ran a huge hill for Tuesday’s hill workout. And I had beautiful scenery for Saturday’s 24 miler and was back on Texas trails for Sunday’s run. All to wrap up 105 miles on the week.

But now comes January. January has good news and bad news. The bad news first. For the next three weeks I will be working 55 hours a week in order to graduate in May and pay rent! You have got to love college right? But that’s life though. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes running is not convenient. But I think it will be good though. It will make me tough. A lot of early mornings and at least my job is at a desk and not on my feet. If I can make it through the next three weeks then I will be able to see the light at the end of tunnel. But it is likely that I will be a little grumpy when this is all said and done. Oh joy!

But on to good news! With the addition of all the new races in the Texas Trail series I have decided that I will compete in the 2014 series. I am adding two 50k races in the spring: Piney Woods TrailFest (down in Houston) and Neuces 50k in March.  I will be training through these two races as build ups to my peak race in April. The distances fit surprisingly well into my training schedule, and with a few adjustments it will fit perfectly.  I am very excited to get out more and have some practice races.  I am confident that this will only help my cause.

More good news! Starting in January I will be contributing to www.endurancebuzz.com.  I am so stoked for this opportunity. I got a hold of David Hanenburg just to ask about putting a link on his website, and he came back and offered me even more! I only hope I can continue to uphold the high standard that Endurance Buzz has set thus far.

So maybe January won’t be so bad? 2013 was good but perhaps 2014 will be even better? I am beginning to think so. Adios 2013 – I am on to better things.

                                                                         Training for this past week:

12x1’ hill sprints in CA – awesome hill for a workout. Very tough. But the view at the top over looked the Pacific which made it very rewarding.

24 miles on Saturday- I was not sure what I would have to work with going into this week as far as training location. So I just assigned a Fartlek on this run. Nothing too major. 12 miles progressive, followed by 10x2’ hard w/ 2’ easy. And then finished off the remaining distance to get to 24. The fartlek mile splits (miles 13-19) were 5:42, 5:46, 5:36, 5:40, 5:32, 5:38, 5:39. Solid day.

Sunday – 16 miles on the trails. After an hour 2x (1’,2’,3’) on 5’ rest cycle. Great run. I forgot my gloves though. So my hands were frozen the entire time. That was not a lot of fun.