My training log for the week of January 5th, 2026 starts with a beautiful run in the Rio Grande bosque along one of the clear ditches. It was a lunchtime run on a Monday, but the Open Space parking lot was still half full. Much to my surprise, not far down the ditch path, I came upon a beaver dam in the ditch, something that I’ve never seen before. I hope that it is left there undisturbed since it is not impacting the flow of the ditch.
Monday January 5th, 2026
Other sites along the way included the Sandia Mountains and the Rio Grande River, looking north and south.
Tuesday January 6th, 2026
Walking to the grocery store and rucking back worked last year at this time, and it will make my legs stronger with the extra 9 pounds and the 86′ of elevation gain. I also did the 10 Minute Focus Week 2 Arms 1 workout.
Another grocery store run, but this time just for raspberries because my daughter loves them with dinner. I did an out-and-back, carried them in a little pack, and saved some gas, too!
First run since January 2025 that I dressed for winter. I definitely didn’t overheat during the one mile walk warm-up and then the run!
It was below freezing with light snow all morning but I didn’t quite get out in time to run in it. I was plenty cold, though, so I only did a half-mile walk to warm up, and then I started running. It was still snowing on the mountain and there is plenty of snow up there now!
A mile warm up today which was most of the uphill, and then a run which was mostly flat and downhill!
I had to factory reset my Polar Vantage V2 to get the altitude to record correctly, and it worked perfectly this morning. I got 233′ of elevation gain on my walk warm-up and then another 341′ on my run up to 6,200′.
