Comfort Season and Changing Direction

No matter where I'm living, the shorter days of fall always do something to me. It doesn't matter if I'm hiding inside from the sub-zero temperatures, ice storms, or driving rain, this time of year is always different.

Since I live far away from family, the holiday rush and excitement is pretty lost on me. Instead of anticipation and winding myself into a ball of anxiety trying to get things done, I find myself decompressing.

Really cool clouds last week looked like sky mountains.

After a busy year, time finally slows down and for this I'm grateful. Life should and must have these ebbs and flows in order to maintain balance. I'm more introspective and daydream more in the fall than all the other seasons combined. I spend more time with my tea, knitting, and a big fuzzy blanket. When I go to the store, I often skip the running clothes rack and head for the aisles containing hot cocoa and throw blankets.

One of my reading spots. Best on sunny days.

What's even better is that this short season often coincides with the fall marathon taper. I don't even have to run. My body feels rejuvenated and refreshed and it's wonderful. Then it's race day and all of a sudden the rest period begins again. I can hole up on the couch with my knitting and tea for one more peaceful month. By the time I'm ready to start building the mileage up again, the days begin to lengthen. It's perfect.

Running through a forest of 300 ft. trees feels cozy too.

I've been thinking about my outdoor life a lot lately. Between each knit and purl is a thought. After my spring marathon (already registered), I'd like to pull away from that distance for awhile. It requires a lot of focused training and energy and I think it's time to shift that focus to include a broader scope of things rather than pavement and running in circles on the track. I have other outdoor interests but they always are pushed aside during marathon training season.

In addition, I've also been struggling with a lingering hip injury and honestly, that scares me. I'd like to have a semi-functioning body when I'm eighty, so that requires me to be proactive and change things up every so often, before something happens that I can't reverse through rest and rehab.

So far, this stuff and a lot of stretching has kept it at a dull ache.

I really love what running has done to my ability to hike a lot, so I plan to retain my endurance base, but expand it to include different activities. Beyond that, I'm mulling over a few ideas that will bring more balance to my life:

-Focus on the half marathon. Giving up roads completely is out of the question. It's all too convenient to lace up and run straight from my front door. I'll never be someone who drives to get to each and every workout. It seems silly and wasteful. I've tried to get myself excited about 5Ks and 10Ks, but when the time comes, I make excuses and change my mind. I don't love it and have accepted that I never will. Half marathons, on the other hand, have always been my true love. Less long runs with about the same amount of speed.

-Crescent City Triathlon. When I was a kid, I was a natural at swimming. I loved it and it was my first glimpse into my preference for endurance events. I could swim miles in the pool without stopping. I took all the advanced swim classes, but eventually stopped at age ten because the next class was lifeguard training and I was too young by several years. I swam a lot during college and loved that my weak arm didn't really affect me much in the pool. As an adult, I've always shied away from triathlon because I absolutely cannot be kicked in the arm during the swim, and if I'm going to lose my arm to something, it's going to be falling off a big ass mountaintop. Out of naive curiosity, I asked the triathlon club Facebook group if there was a way for me to avoid that. They explained how pool swims work. There's a local triathlon that is a perfect first tri and the swim is in the pool, almost all my multi-sport friends do it. Since my limitation can be classified as a disability, the director could probably get me my own lane and I'd get to do it too!

-More trails, but less long races. Summertime trail races are a little bit of a letdown. I sit around a lot during the summer, spending two weeks tapering in July and then two more in August for recovery. By the time I'm ready to go again, it's fall. I could use less pavement pounding and more challenging terrain anyway. Even though I love the Siskiyou Outback in July, I'd like to pass on that this year.

-More yoga? After too much pressure on my hand left me with injured fingers for almost six months, I've been afraid to practice much again. (See above RE: irreversible injuries). Adding another yoga mat (up to three now, it's almost like a mattress!) seems to help, so we'll see how it goes. If I end up hurting myself again, I might just chalk this activity up to something that I really shouldn't be doing anymore, like downhill skiing.

Zoey likes yoga too.

Enough about me. How are you doing? Do the shorter days make you feel more relaxed or do you get caught up in the holiday rush? 

What do you do to change up your workout routine in order to avoid long-term injury?