Christmas Workouts

For having finals, doing final grading, and being gone or on the road for nearly 4 full days of these past 2 weeks, my training doesn't look too bad:

My SWIMMING is still going strong: over 8000 yards during these 2 busy weeks? Nice. I'm looking to have another big month (after last month was my biggest in 4 years hitting over 20,000 yards) even though I feel like I'm "backing off" a bit.

My RUNNING is where I figured it would be. I'm still just doing easy/moderate runs as I'm sort of re-building a "base" for my janky sacrum/back/hip. On the 20th, I did an easy 5-mile run with my sister-in-law's boyfriend on the open roads in southern MN. (We call him "New Matt" because we already have a bro-in-law named Matt.) On Christmas Day, I did the same run, but I upped the pace a bit - I ran 1 more mile in only 43 seconds more. (First real effort since running the "24 Hour Relay for Aaron" 2 weeks ago - averaged 6:34 overall, and middle 3 miles at sub-6:30 pace. Not "tempo," but a decent effort.) And then I Instagrammed this:

"Just finished a 6-miler on this sexy, quiet, freshly re-paved hwy in southern MN.
#NeededToLetChristmasDinnerSettleLonger"

My BIKING... wait, WHAT did I say in my off season training plan post 2 months ago? That I'd try to hit the trainer a bit - even just twice a month? Oh yeah. Where's my trainer again?... Oops.

And you see my STRENGTH work is pretty high! That's a lot of leg exercises to keep my butt strong so my running can keep progressing. Blast that ass!