Resolutions for the rest of the year

The post-PR buzz has officially faded into a mild case of burnout.

It's nothing serious or new to runners — it's been an ambitious, busy year, and I've completed the last of my big events for the year. Now what?

Part of me wants to just spend the rest of the year on the couch, but the rest of me thinks that's a bad idea. So we're striking a compromise.

In three weeks, I've got the Living History Farms race, so aimless, mindless, directionless running won't fly. (I'll just end up running three miles a few times a week.) But because it's an adventure more than a race, I just need to make sure I still have functional muscles.

The compromise: run three times a week at minimum, without concern for time/speed, and add one or two days of cross-training. Also, I'm inspired enough by a recent post on Competitor.com about taking care of the little things to declare I'll foam roll more often.

After Living History, it's couch time until Thanksgiving, when the Runner's World Holiday Running Streak begins.

As amazing as hibernation sounds, I'm going to delay it until 2014 because I enjoyed the challenge last year. It gave me something different to focus on/strive for, and like it was designed to do, it kept me moving during prime eating season.

Tentative plans for the run streak are to have three one-mile days, and then to set an upper limit (I'm thinking four or five) for the other days.

And on Jan. 2, I will give up running for at least a week, if not two. Last year, that was easy because I caught a nasty sinus infection; this year, it might be easy because my lease runs out Dec. 31 and I intend to move and adopt a second cat.

But who knows. If we have a beautiful nonwinter like we did in 2011-12, laziness might turn out to be tough after all.