A Bumpy Reentry

I am seriously out of shape.

I don't know why I'm surprised by this; I did my best assimilation of a couch potato through the month of December. There was not much training to speak of during November either; work commitments took me back to Vancouver for a month where I put in long days at the office and attempted to eat my weight in sushi while catching up with friends in the evenings.

So when we woke up to -15C and icy pavements in every direction this morning (we are currently in the German town of Bad Toelz, at the foot of the Bavarian Alps) and Michael suggested that we rent snowshoes and attempt to get a run in on some hard packed trails, I had no idea that I was going to break down after ten minutes at a moderate tempo with a breathless 'let's walk for a bit'. Not good. We managed a gentle jog/hike up to a view point on a soft packed forest trail where we stopped to breakfast on some semi-frozen peanut butter sandwiches and grapes, before high-tailing it back down to hit the hot spring baths for which the town in noted.

Almost at the top

Michael stops for a non-vegan pretzel

I seemed to have trouble kicking up snow behind me while running

On reflection, it wasn't only my training schedule that left a lot to be desired over recent months. Once I had made up my mind to turn my back on some of my favourite things come January 1, I adopted a 'last chance' attitude towards tiramisu/croissants/turkey and stuffing/icecream and anything else I predicted I might miss in 2009. In light of this pre-vegan loading phase, it's not really surprising that I felt like a was wrapping up a brisk 10K after less than ten minutes of snow-running.

Floating around in the outdoor mineral pools, feeling like a baby beluga marooned in the Dead Sea, I took to counting the beer bellies on German women in an attempt to console myself for the morning's disappointing reentry into physical activity. I bolstered that effort by reminding myself that January is always like this, and it always rights itself with a few weeks of solid training and restrained eating.

Still, I think I'm going to need a near-term goal to focus on. An Ironman in September might as well be light-years away in terms of providing the inspiration I need now to crunch out of first gear. Besides, I need to test my vegan progress at an earlier point in the year. I have enough marathons under my belt to benchmark from, so first thing tomorrow, I am looking into what springtime marathons are not yet sold out in Western Europe. There's nothing like a looming 42.2K to get things kicked-started.