Back to School

I just landed in Anchorage yesterday, and I've got to say that I'm pretty disappointed with this weather.  For a month, I've been spoiled with no snow and daily temperatures above freezing making it perfect for some solid running in Toronto.  But sadly, my good luck didn't follow me up north.  I arrived in the Airport to hear the pilot say "Welcome to Anchorage, where we have clear skies and a temperature of -6 Fahrenheit".  It's almost a 40 degree drop in the temperature I had when I left Toronto, and understandably I wasn't really excited at all when I walked out of the airport.  The only other time I've spent outside so far has been to go to and from the treadmill in a building across the street, and honestly I really didn't even want to walk that far.  Hopefully things warm up in the next few days for school on Tuesday.  I have to say that I'm pumped for this semester.  Maybe it was the long break or the idea of getting back to training with the team, but either way I'm ready for school to begin.

This time around, I'll be coming into track season with a good idea of where I'm at in terms of fitness, and what I need to do to translate my fitness into fast times on the track.  Over the break I had a chance to run some of the major workouts I did in high school, as well as running some longer tempos faster than I ever have before.  The good news is that I've never been this fit in January.  One of the ways I've always been able to track progress is by looking back at myself one year ago at the same time in my season and comparing my fitness to this year.  In cross country season, I was definitely behind on my grade 12 fitness albeit due to an injury, but things have really gone well this past month and now I can certainly say that I'm ahead of January 2011. Also, apart from a little turnover, I feel that I'm just as aerobically fit as I was in the beginning of April last year.  It's obviously a good sign that I've been able to develop a significant base, but now I've got about six weeks where I'll need to focus on gearing up and getting into racing shape.  I'm still not sure what I'll be running as my main event, but I don't think there is any question it will be either the 1500 or 5000.  I guess time will tell.  Apart from training, there really isn't too much going on in Anchorage to talk about.  I'll try to put up another blog as soon as track (and hopefully the weather) starts to heat up.