Holding Pattern

I took five days off from running and thought about where to go from here. I appear to have three or four options:

1. rest up, a little, and prepare to go back on the offensive and run another marathon in the next few weeks (not months). This option is appealing simply because I don't know when I'll be in this type of (marathon) shape again, but it comes with a price (in Norm MacDonald voice) - "it means running another marathon".

2. rest-up, as if I've run a marathon, and resume a normal training schedule come March (i.e. - take time off, followed by easy weeks)

3. consider the "hard 18 miler" I ran and last Sunday as...a hard 18 miler and consider the lead-up and subsequent down periods as blips in the bigger picture training scheme.

4. see option 3 then add "run a late winter/early spring marathon"

Part of me wants to take a break (to ensure I've ridden myself from all my niggles), but part of me wants to slowly ramp back up to my normal routine: 70-80 mpw and 1-2 workouts per week. 

I'm still toying with what I should do, but all options are on the table. In the meantime I'll start out easy and see how I feel over the coming days/week. One might say, I'm in a..."holding pattern" (get it?).

On Saturday, I ran an easy hour or so (my GPS never caught a signal and I threw it into the woods - no I didn't...) in the snowy trails of Rock Creek Park. My legs felt fine aside from that normal I-haven't-run-in-days-type feeling.

The next day I ran an easy 10 miles with the GRC from The Line...only we went north then (south) east along the RCT-CCT.

On Monday evening I ran the Cabin John trails with Scott and Jordan.