Big Workout with Josh. Or, should I say, Complete Sufferfest. Josh had one more big workout on the calendar before Boston and I agreed to provide moral support, if not actual training support. Luke, our 9mo, was up literally all night and I spent most of the hours between 1 and 4 am fighting that loss of rationality that sometimes accompanies late-night parenting, when even seemingly benign questions like "where is his binky?" come out sounding like the words of a madman. But I did sleep well between 5:00am and 5:20, when the alarm went off. I met up with Josh at 5:45, barely conscious. It was windy and snowing and looked like it was only going to start snowing more. We ran a 3 mile warm up over to 900 South and then began the tempo run. For the meat of the workout, Josh had a 10 mile progression run planned, with a total of 16 miles overall. I had a strong suspicion it wasn't my day for a hard 10 mile run, and given the awful weather this morning, it was hard to think it was a good day for anyone to do it. My goal was 7, see how it felt, and then cool down. Well, I'll tell you it felt like crap. I struggled to maintain 6:30 pace. Most miles (I don't have my splits) were in the 6:40+ range. By mile 7, I was struggling with 7 minute pace, and also struggling with a fierce headwind and snow. I think I ended up with about 7.5 miles of tempo before it was time to jog. The thing was there wasn't much of a difference in my pace at that point, the transition from "fast" to slow was non-existent. Josh, however, ran more and faster. The upside was just getting it done on a tough morning.
| 