Priorities

The past week has been another whirlwind, but I've enjoyed every minute of it!  On Thursday my sister came down to visit.  Her best friend was going to be in the area for a conference so we made plans to spend as much time with him as possible before he had to head home.  Apart from eating some great food, I also got to show them some of the highlights of DC.

I love Zoo Lights!  And donkeys.

We definitely were on the go a lot, and honestly, it's been really hard to get some decent runs in.  I made the decision to push my training plan back a month and sadly, the Runner's World holiday streak has come to an end for this girl.  When I started my training plan, it was the week of Thanksgiving.  It worked out ok because my family is really understanding when I need to head out for a little bit for a run and I had quite a few days to spend with them.  Coming home from Thanksgiving I started to get stressed.  I got really anxious thinking of how I was going to get everything done and I realized I wasn't going to be able to enjoy anything if I was constantly stressing over the holiday season.  The holidays are a time where you should enjoy your family and not worry so much over other aspects of life.  Now that I don't see my family that often, I wanted to make sure I was enjoying every second I could with them, not sitting there figuring out when I can squeeze a run in.  

Yesterday my sister and I woke up early for one last breakfast with her friend and then my parents and nice friend came to head over to the Flying Dog Brewery for a tour.  Could I have woken up earlier to get a run in?  Sure.  Could I have left my parents for a few minutes to get my running streak mile in? Yeah, I could have.  It all comes down to priorities and spending as much time as possible with the family came first.  Ultimately, I'm feeling good about my decision to enjoy my holiday running when I can and then really hitting the ground running (see what I did there?) in January.     

I still plan to try to get some more consistent running in so when I do officially start my plan back up again it's not a complete shock to my body.  I also plan to embrace this time of year (even when it means curling up in bed with a book and hot chocolate when it gets dark at 5:00 instead of hitting the treadmill).  I'm feeling refreshed and ready to end 2012 right.