It’s been a little while since I have last written and a lot has happened this month. This month, I came in at 153.9 miles for the month. This is the highest mileage for a month, ever. While training for Chicago, the highest I came in at was 153 miles in August. I didn’t really mean to run this many miles, but the weather was incredible the first part of the month and I would just go out and run, longer than planned as I was feeling great during those runs. I started the year off right on the 1st by running 13.1 miles at 1:56:42. This was a spare of the moment run and just went with it.

I hired a coach! Last year while training for the Chicago Marathon, I just used a plan that was supplied to us through Team Challenge. There wasn’t really any rhyme or reason to it except building up mileage. I have some big goals for this year and decided to hire one here locally to me so I can hit my goals. I am hoping to come in under 4:10 in Nashville with all of the hills there and come in under 4 hours in my fall marathon, which is still to be determined. I have a little hope I will get into NYC, but not really counting on it with only a 15ish percent chance of getting in through the lottery. Assuming I don’t get in, I will probably be going for the Marine Corps Marathon in November. I have heard great things about that marathon and there isn’t any better way to celebrate Veteran’s Day than running with a bunch of Marines lining the streets of DC.

The other big news this month is I am now part of Team Nuun! I have grown to love drinking Nuun over the last year or so and put my name in the hat to be an ambassador for them. The community has been great and I will be sporting some Nuun gear in my races. It is so much better than other hydration drinks and doesn’t have all of the sugars that they have in them.

On the Crohn’s front, everything is still staying in check for me as I have started to ramp up my mileage as I train for the Nashville Rock n Roll Marathon in April. I have been running indoors and on the treadmill to stay out of the recent cold weather snap we are having here in Indiana. I’m super excited to be able to be back outside this weekend with temps back in the mid-30s and even in the low 50s come early next week. 14 miles on the treadmill is dreadful and a mental challenge. We can only hope that after this polar vortex gets out of the midwest, we will have some global warming. Time will tell.