I did manage an easy 17 miles the week of Christmas, but only 5 the week of new years.  However, I did do a few full body workouts that week.  They consisted of Hindu squats, lunges, Hindu press ups, push ups, planks, crunches, pull ups, and chin ups.

January 2nd started a new week off right, with a trip to the gym; where I did 5 miles on the treadmill and chuckled at the massive amount of new gym members.  I rested Sunday, did 7 miles Monday, 2 hours of basketball on Tuesday, and rested today.  I'll soon be intensifying my training, I want to get my mileage back up to 40+ mi/week by February.

It was relatively uneventful.  I started my run at a slower pace ~8:40 and bumped up the speed about every half mile.  I finished with an average pace of 8:18/mile.  Not bad.

A quick snack of black beans with tabasco sauce, then I'll be off to bed.  Work in the morning, but its the last day before Christmas vacation!

Essentially, a tempo run. However, I believe my outdoor tempo is faster than my treadmill tempo, and I am unsure if a treadmill tempo run is as effective as an outdoor tempo run.  I'll have  to do some investigating to find out.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get at least 5 more miles in tonight, and again tomorrow, after work.  Which will put me at 22 mi for the week, unless I can get a run in Christmas Eve morning and Christmas day.

I hit the trail a few moments later to find it completely snow covered, with a few sets of footprints through the middle.  I setup my Ipod and Nike+ and began running.  The snow definitely increase the difficulty level, as your feet sink in and slip every which way.  As difficult as it was, I had a blast.  The first 2.5 miles where snow covered, then I hit a 0.5 mile stretch where the path had been plowed, before getting back into the snow for the last 0.5 miles.

Unfortunately, the difficult surface was decreasing my efficiency, and I was getting tired on just the second lap around.  At 6.5 miles, my IPod battery ran out.  I decided it was best if I just finished up at 7 miles, with an approximate 8:30 pace.  I should mention that running in the snow caused my Nike+ to measure the 6.5 miles as 7.4... Interesting.

These are some pics from after the run.

I did 5.5 miles today in 45 minutes with the incline set at 1.  A decent run, but just as last time, I get a pain in the outside of my right knee.  I only get the pain if I run on the treadmill, though its a tradeoff, because I don't get any shin splints.  The reason I'm leaning toward stride is that my Nike+ is not registering every footstep, in fact it only registered me as having run 5 miles vs. 5.5 as reported by the treadmill.

Time will tell.  In the meantime, I'm going to peruse RunnersWorld for some treadmill training tips.

I'm still looking for 2010 race recommendations, particularly in february.