Jon's Jibber-jabber

My first week back training is done.  It is also my first week of officially training in my new home, Florida.   I will say one thing about Florida.  It is hot.  We witnessed the state's transition from winter (referred to as "not hot" around here to summer, hot). When we arrived in Florida in late February, the high temperatures were around 65-70 degrees with lows in the 50s and occasionally in the 40s.  This seemed very warm to us coming from -10 at some points.  About two weeks ago, March came and with it went winter.  Temps rose overnight to near 90 and have stayed there with highs hovering in the 85-90 mark each day.   Nights do get down to about 65-68 (the previous highs).  So that's it.  Now it is hot and there doesn't seem to be end in sight.  Today is a cool 80 degrees with a nice breeze.  I will say that it is pretty interesting to look at the 10 day extended forecast and see the same symbol and numbers for nearly the...

This week I started back to training after taking basically three months off.   During that time, I needed the break mentally, physically and socially.  My wife and I transitioned jobs.  Oh and we moved nearly 1,000 miles to the sunny shores of the Tampa Bay.  Hello Florida.   Since we basically do most of our races here anyway, why not just move.   With that, it became extremely hard to manage the work situation, moving and a full training schedule.  I could barely get in a run or find the motivation to train.  The unusually cold winter also made it more unappealing to be indoors on the trainer/treadmill for months at a time.  Because of the move, I didn't really sign up for any early season races.  So with no goals, bad weather and stressful moving, resistance was futile.  I just needed to stop.   This year, my schedule is pretty light on races in quantity but does include some serious quality races that I need to not...