A clydesdale no more!

The roads were a snowy, slush mess.  I spent most of the run on the snow covered sidewalks so it was difficult to maintain a steady pace.  I got sprayed by a snow plow and a couple of cars so I was completely drenched.  Despite all of this, I felt really good during this run.  I'm mostly pain free and I was able to run comfortably most of the time.

Total Time: 1:36:48 (7:45/mile)

Amy's out of town for a few days so the only time to run is before the kids got out of school.  Running in the afternoon was great.  It was warm, the sun was out and my body was awake.  I was able to run in shorts and a short sleeve shirt which was great.  It was supposed to be a nice and easy recovery run today but I felt too good so I pushed the pace.

Total Time: 42:46 (7:08/mile)

Another afternoon run.  I could get used to this.  It was 49 degrees which is perfect.  The only problem was that it was a little windy (10 mph).  The plan was to warm up with a couple of easy miles then run a 7 mile tempo run.  I have dreaded this run since I put it on the schedule in December.  After reading Daniels' Running Formula, I realized that my problem was that I ran these too fast.  Daniels suggests running this long of a tempo run at tempo pace + 15 seconds.  I've always run this right at tempo pace and struggled to finish them.  Warmed up with 2.25 easy miles then I was on my way.  Based on the flags, the first 3 miles should have been with the wind.  I never really felt like the wind was helping me.  It felt more like a cross wind than a tail wind. My target pace was 6:45/mile.

Mile	Split	Note
1	6:20	Too fast.  Maybe wind aided.
2	6:27	Still fast but feel comfortable
3	6:31	Still fast but don't feel like I'm pushing too hard.
4	6:38	Better split but I have turned into the wind
5	6:43	Good split but the entire mile was into the wind.
6	6:38	Still running into the wind
7	6:31	Head wind but feel good
Average	6:33

Overall, I felt really good about this run.  After a couple of weeks of being in the dumps, it feels good to have a good hard workout.  The splits look a little wild but the slower times were due to the head wind and the faster times due to the tail wind.  I feel as though it was a pretty even effort.

Total Time: 1:09:14 (6:55/mile)

Easy recovery run in the afternoon.  Pretty windy but otherwise a nice day.

Total Time: 37:20 (7:28/mile)

The short sleeve running weather didn't last long.  Woke up to a few inches of fresh snow and it was still coming down hard.  It wasn't too cold but the roads were a slushy mess.  Ran 6 relatively easy miles.  At the end, I felt like it wasn't enough of a run but tomorrow is a big run so I decided to end it at 6.

Total Time: 47:14 (7:52/mile)

The temps dropped last night and it was 20 when I headed out the door.  Planned on running the first 8 miles at a very easy pace (around 8:30/mile) then run the next 12 at marathon pace (7:15/mile) then run the last 2 miles easy.   Felt very comfortable and ended up averaging a little faster than 8:00/mile for the first 8.  Stopped to figure out why I was getting a shot of pain in my heal every time I jumped off a curb.  After inspecting my shoe, I realized that I had a giant tack stuck in the bottom of my shoe.  I have no idea how I didn't notice this before.  Started the MP run and the first couple miles felt very easy at 7:00/mile.  Consciously backed off the pace because I didn't want to crash.  The first few miles are downhill to flat then there are a series of uphills.  I figured that this course mimics Boston very well and would be a good test.  Hit the uphill section and the pace only dropped to 7:10-7:15/mile.  I expected a much bigger drop.  The big hilly mile was 7:30 and my HR jumped to 165 but that was expected.   A couple more small climbs then some downhill then finished with 3 flat miles.  All came in between 7:05-7:15/mile.  I felt very good about the effort.  Overall pace for the MP miles was 7:11/mile which I was excited about considering how much climbing that I had to do.  I have always struggled with longer MP runs so it was really nice to have a good one.

I should have mapped out this run before I went out.  I thought that I knew how far it was and thought that I would have to add on a couple of miles at the end.  The planned 22 miler ended up being 24.5.  Knowing that I still had 4 miles until I got home instead of 2, I called home letting Amy know that I would be late.  She offered to pick me up but I figured that the extra 2 miles would be good for me.  Ran the last 4 at 8:00/mile and finished the last 0.5 at MP.  Considered running 1.7 miles more just to make it a full marathon (would have been around 3:16-3:17 and not an all out effort) but decided that I had enough.

Total Time: 3:05:10 (7:33/mile)
Avg HR: 150