When the Off-Season Sabbatical takes a Sabbatical of its own...

Another comfort zone violation is in the works. I hate it when I do this to myself (well, sort of LOL).

A last-minute half marathon? Sure, why not?!

I take my off-season pretty seriously. I respect the rest/recovery/rebuilding a runner's body needs after a busy year of activity. Recently, though, I have found myself in a myriad of confusion, training dilemmas aplenty, a little bit of holiday stress, and a last-minute family vacation thrown in for good measure.

And I have been doing (what I consider) very minimal mileage, even with the Streaking (you can read about that HERE ). Most of my "regular" runs have been no more than 2-3 miles during the week (2-3 times), and I have been doing the minimal 1-mile "streaking" run on the usual days when I normally would not be running (but would have some form of cross-training on my schedule). My weekend "long runs" have been conservative as well, nothing longer than 5-6 miles in distance.

This streaking regimen has been ongoing since Thanksgiving Day....thus far (as of December 20th), I have 25 days of streaking completed. Imagine my surprise when I tallied up my streaking miles and arrived at 61 total miles! That's already three more miles than a year ago, and I still have 12 more days before the streak ends. Yikes.

Let me backup for a minute and remind you that I'm a proud University of Iowa alumni, and my beloved Hawkeyes are traveling to Pasadena, CA for the Rose Bowl. And the husband and I decided to go along with them and take the family there as well.

Necessary Rose Bowl attire

Sooooo, what's a runner to do? I'm not just packing up my running shoes (and appropriate running gear), but I found two races to do while in California. One race is a half marathon (on New Year's Eve morning), and the other is a 5K (on January 2, the day after the Rose Bowl). 

Have I been training for a half marathon? (no) But, am I excited to run a couple of races in California? (Absolutely!!) Do I have a strategy? (sort of)

I am not concerned about the 5K (there's also a 10K option); that distance is a routine distance for me and does not present any challenges unless I'm attempting to "race" it...but, hello? This is California! I want to enjoy the scenery and not worry about my finish time (besides, I will probably be meeting up and running with a friend).

Then there's the half marathon. I have run so many half marathons, I'm not really concerned about that event, either. This just seemed like it was meant to be. After all, what are the odds of finding a race on a Thursday morning? I have not run in warm weather for a few months, though, and (other than my 8-mile run on Sunday) I have not run farther than six miles since my last half marathon (in early November). I do plan to do another long-ish run (8-9 miles) later this week, and call it good. That will give me a solid week to (sort of) taper. Not ideal, but I think I'm a well-seasoned-enough runner for this kind of spontaneous event. I don't plan on racing this event either, and will take walk breaks if needed. I'm totally OK with that. Sound good?

Have you ever done a spontaneous race (or a couple) while on vacation?

I'm linking up with Holly from HoHo Runs and Tricia from MissSippiPiddlin  for the Weekly Wrap. I invite you to head over and check out their blogs (as well as the other linked blogs) to see what the rest of us have been up to.