Same Time, Same Channel

Progression run: 8 miles easy, but with the last 10 minutes moderate.

Weather: 48°F, 23% humidity, wind 9.2 SSE.

Motionbased.com says the wind was 9.2 at Centennial Airport, which is about 10 miles from where I live, but I think it was windier than that here when I was running. My hat blew off twice, the second time just as I was entering an intersection right in front of a car that was waiting to turn right. Fortunately he saw me and waited for me.

In the original training plan I'm using it didn't have yesterday's 10 mile progression run and today's 8 mile progression run next to each other they way I did it. It had 6 miles easy with one short hill sprint today and the 8 mile progression run tomorrow. However, I switched it around to put the easier workout on Friday because I have to do my long run on Saturday, whereas the original schedule has the long run on Sunday with a rest day on Saturday.

My easy pace today was a little faster than my easy pace yesterday. I thought my moderate pace was slower than it was yesterday, but looking at my splits, I guess it wasn't. But it felt easier. I guess that's because I only had to do it for 10 minutes, not 5 miles. In an any case, the splits for the first 7 miles ranged between 10:05 and 10:58, while the 8th mile was 8:55, and the last 0.14 of a mile was at 9:08/mile pace.

I ran much later in the day than I normally do on a weekday because I've got the day off from work. I work tomorrow, so I'll have to run early tomorrow morning. And next week I've really got to get back to getting up earlier because the kids go back to school. It's so hard for me to get up early these days because the son doesn't rise until about 7:30.

Easy run with one short hill sprint. Average pace: 10:33/mile.

Weather: 42°F, humidity 36%, wind 10.4 (avg) 13.8 (max) SSE

This was a windy run, I was tired, and I went fairly slowly. I didn't feel like doing the hill sprint when it got time for it, but I did it anyway and managed to go 10.13 seconds @ 6:45/mile pace.

I hope I have energy for a long run tomorrow.

Long run. Average pace: 10:07/mile.

Weather: 28°F, humidity 77.3%, wind 5.2 mph SSW.

The humidity actually increased slightly during my run and now it's snowing. I'm glad I got the run finished before the snow started.

I live just south of the county line between Douglas County and Arapahoe County. I usually run east, west, or south from my house and stay in Douglas County. I decided to do something different today and run north. I didn't have a route planned, so I decided to just go four 7 miles then turn around and come back. I was able to go north for about 5 miles, but then the route I was on ended, and so I turned east for a couple of miles. There was a gas station at about the place where I turned around, which was forunate for me. I made a pit stop.

The elevation profile of my run looks like a W with the ends higher than the point in the middle. The initial going north part was mostly downhill and then the going east part was uphill, and of course the west and then south were the opposite. The uphill at the very end of the run was really hard.

I'm glad to have completed my first week of official marathon training. I might revise my training plan a little before next week. I switched Saturdays and Sundays from the official plan so that I would have my long run on Saturday and rest on Sunday instead of vice versa. Because of that, I also switched Thursdays and Fridays so that I would have an easier run on Friday before the long run. Now I'm thinking I should switch Tuesdays and Wednesdays because I currently have relatively hard days on Wednesdays and Thursdays and it's not good having them next to each other.

Easy run with 2-10 second hill sprints at the end. Average pace: 10:56/mile.

Weather @ 6:15 am: 17°F, humidity 57%, wind 8.6 mph (avg) SSE

My easy pace was slow today. I guess I needed a recovery day after last Saturday's long run. We got about an inch or so of snow on Saturday afternoon/evening, but a fair amount melted away yesterday, especially in places that had been shoveled. So I had clear sidewalks for more than 1/2 of my run, but there were big sections that were snowy/icy, specifically one street that I was on for about a mile, and the bike trail that I was on for aboutg a half mile at the end of the run. Fortunately, the hill where I do the hill sprints (and which connects to the main bike trail) was clear, probably because it is south-facing.

I goofed up and hit the start/stop button instead of the lap button at the start of my first hill sprint, so I don't have stats for that hill sprint. The second hill sprint was 10.18 seconds @ 7:28/mile pace. The first hill sprint was probably similar.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to do 12 miles with the first 6 easy and the second 6 moderate. I'm a little apprehensive about doing such a long run on a weekday. I'm going to have to get up really early to get it done before work. I'm thinking that I'll do two 6 mile loops, maybe the same loop twice, or maybe two different loops rather than venturing too far from home. If I run too far in one direction I have to deal with more hills. And it just feels more comforting to be relatively close to home the whole time.

Objective: Progression run - 6 miles easy, 6 miles moderate

Weather from 5:15-7:15 am: 27°F, 41% humidity, wind 8 mph NW

My mile splits for the first six miles ranged from 10:53 to11:34. It seems that when I'm doing a relatively long progression run, I run the easy part really slowly in anticipation of having to speed up, slower than I go when I'm doing an easy run of the same length or seven longer.

My mile splits for the last six miles ranged from 8:32 to 9:41.

I went out wearing a hooded sweatshirt and two pairs of gloves (among other things, but these things are pertinent to the story). I knew right off that the sweatshirt was too much, and I took it off after the first mile. I thought about passing by my house at some point and dropping it off, but I didn't do it. Instead I tied it around my waist. A little while later, I took off the outer pair of gloves and put them in the pockets of the sweatshirt, the right glove in the right pocket and the left glove in the left pocket. I ran like this for quite a while and then at the end of the 9th mile, I took off the other pair of gloves and put them in the pockets, right in right, left in left. At the end of the 11th mile, I wanted to put one pair of gloves back on, so I reached in my pockets and found no gloves in my left pocket. I had dropped both left gloves somewhere along the way. I continued on and finished the run, then when I got home I got in the car and drove around for a half an hour peering at sidewalks looking for my gloves. When I had given up and was heading home I spotted one of the gloves and stopped and picked it up. It was from the outer pair of gloves. I looked all around but couldn't see the other glove. I'm worried if they both fell out at the same time, because I found the one glove near the curb of a busy intersection and I'm worried that the one glove might have gotten run over and carried away by traffic. And the missing glove is a smartwool glove liner that I got for Christmas. I know that I lost that glove somewhere between the end of the 9th mile, when I took it off, and the end of the 11th mile, where I realized it was gone, so I'll probably run that section tomorrow and look for it. That will make tomorrow's run a little longer than I had intended, but oh well. I was going to run short tomorrow because I'll need a recovery day after today's run, and I need to prepare my son's birthday breakfast. I guess losing a glove, even an expensive one, isn't the end of the world. Still, I would like to find it.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:26/mile.

Weather at 7:00 am: 39°F, 41% humidity, wind 12 mph NW.

I ran a loop that included the two mile stretch within which I lost my glove yesterday and . . . I found my glove! It was on the grass right beside the sidewalk at the crest of a very small hill. Yippee!

I just ran easy today, and it didn't feel appreciably different in terms of effort than the 6 easy miles from the first half of yesterday's run. However, all of my mile splits today were faster than any of my easy miles yesterday and slower than any of my moderate miles yesterday. I was surprised how good I felt today after yesterdays hard workout, but that's not the thing I'm wondering about. Was I so slow on the easy portion yesterday just because I was anticipating having to speed up, or is the difference that I had my face covered during the easy miles yesterday and I didn't have my face covered today? I'm wondering whether covering my face restricts the flow of oxygen to the point that it forces me to run slower. Just a thought.

I got a late start on my run today because I had to make a birthday breakfast for my son and it needed to be ready at 6:30. I didn't want to get up early enough to be done with my run in time to cook breakfast, especially since I didn't get to bed early last night.

Progression run - 8 miles easy except last 10 minutes moderate. Average pace: 10:16.

Split times for miles 1-7 range from 10:12 through 10:56. Mile 8 - 8:42.

Weather at 5:50 am: 37°F, 53% humidity, winds 6.6 mph SSE. 

I was a stupid idiot and could have gotten myself killed this morning. There are three places on the route I ran today where I have to cross a busy street, each time at a light that has a walk signal. I stopped at the first one and hit the button for the walk signal, took a drink and then looked around and not could see any cars in either direction, so I headed across the street against the light. About halfway across the street, I saw a car crest a hill to my right (I hadn't noticed the small hill in the dark) and speed towards me. I poured on the speed and ran the rest of the way across the street (the street is about 8 lanes wide) as fast as I could and avoided getting hit.

I was berating myself for being stupid and vowed never to cross against the light again and then I got to the second place where I needed to cross a busy street (not quite as big or busy as the first one). When I arrived at the intersection, the light was green in the direction I was going. Not wanting to stop, I started across the road. I hadn't gotten very far across the street when the light turned yellow and it was red before I got to the other side. To my good fortune, the car that was in a position to hit me was stopped waiting for the light, saw me crossing in front of him, and waited for me.

Lesson finally learned, I waited for the walk signal at the third crossing (which was the same street I had crossed on the first crossing, but at a different point).

I think I'm going to have to run really early tomorrow morning because I've got a conference call for work from 7 to 8 (I hope it doesn't go the whole hour), and I've got to get my son to school at 8:00 for Math Olympians and go to Donuts with Dad (though I'm neither Dad nor should I eat a donut) with my daughter at the same school at 8:00. I'll need to have the run done and be all dressed and ready to go by 7:00. I better be running by 5:00.

Easy run with 2 hill sprints. Average pace: 10:48/mile. Hill sprint #1: 10.15 sec @ 6:48/mile. Hill sprint #2: 9.8 sec. @ 6:44/mile.

Weather at 5:35 am: 37°F, 53% humidity, winds 5.8 mph NNE.

I didn't manage to get up as early as I had intended, but I did get the run in, do my conference call, and get the kids to school in time for Donuts with Dad (shame on me - I ate a donut). I showered and was dressed but not completely ready before the conference call, ate breakfast during the conference call, and then finished getting ready after the call because it only went 1/2 hour instead of the hour it was scheduled for.

This is the first time I've done hill sprints in the dark. I've always been out a little later in the morning on days I've done hill sprints, I guess. So it was a little more guesswork about how far up the hill to run because, though I had the headlamp, I couldn't see all that well.

I've decided that it's not the face covering that makes me run slower some days. Some days I'm just more tired or something and just run slower. Today was one of those days. I've had kind of a high mileage week and yesterday was a rough day. At this point I'm thinking that maybe I should do 14 instead of 16 tomorrow. The "official" training plan says 14, but when I customized it for myself I bumped it up to 16 because I've done 14 the last couple of Saturdays. But my weekday mileage is higher this week than previous weeks and higher than it would be with the "official" training plan because I did 5 miles on a day that was supposed to be a rest or cross-training day.

Long run. Average pace: 10:05/mile.

Weather from 8:42 am to 11:35 am: 33.8° - 39.2°. Humidity 40%. Wind 7 mph SW.

This turned into the run where I saw things I had not seen or noticed before. I was on the Highline Canal Trail and I had gone about 4 miles and was wishing for a bathroom. I was near my friend's inlaws' house and my friend had told me I could stop there for the bathroom if I ever needed to, but I was confident that I could remember which house it was, so I kept going. A little bit later I came to street the the trail crosses. I was wishing that there was a gas station on the street, but it's in a residential area and there are no businesses. However, as I approached the street I noticed a small parking lot. Because of the lack of businesses of any kind I figured the only purpose for the parking lot was to provide access to the trail. And then I noticed a port-a-potty in the parking lot. I'm sure it's a permanent fixture there. It was like I was wishing for a bathroom, and *poof*, one magically appeared. It even had toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

When I started out on the run I was undecided about whether to do 14, 15, or 16 miles. I figured I'd run 7 and then keep going if I felt like it to either 7.5 or 8 and turn around and whichever of those points I felt like. After the bathroom stop I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to go all the way to mile marker 8 and then turn around.

A little while later I saw something else I hadn't seen before on the trail. A man riding a horse and leading another horse. I knew that horses are ridden on the trail sometimes because I've seen evidence of it, and I've seen horses in fenced areas adjacent to the trail. I had just never seen a horse on the trail before. And then a little while later I heard some roosters crowing. I looked over and noticed a little pen with chickens in it that I had never noticed before. It's a little ways from the trail and there are a few trees in the way, so it's kind of hard to see, but the roosters were making enough noise that I noticed it today.

It's funny to me that there's this semi-rural area in the middle of the Denver metro area.

When I was finishing the 10th mile, I felt like slowing down, but I remembered something I read in Daniels' Running Formula last night that said, essentially, if you feel like slowing down, speed up. So I decided to pick up the pace just a little bit. I did that and found that I could maintain that pace, so I ran the slightly faster pace for the remaining 6 miles. Not to bore anyone, but to illustrate what I did, my splits were 10:52, 10:43, 10:10, 10:01, 10:28, 10:19, 10:24, 10:11, 10:26, 10:15, (here's where I picked up the pace) 9:56, 9:46, 9:32, 9:40, 9:32, 9:14. So what was supposed to be a long run at easy pace turned into a 10 easy/ 6 moderate progression run. I put those 6 miles in fast miles even though for a lot of people they wouldn't be fast, but for me in a run of that length, they were fast.

This is the highest mileage I have ever run in a week.

Recovery run. Average pace: 10:50/mile.

Weather at 5:30 am: 27°F, 87% humidity, wind 18 mph ENE, about an inch of fresh snow on the ground and snowing steadily.

I was glad that I only had a short run planned today. Today would have been a good day to have yaktrax or screws on my shoes, but alas, I have not acquired either of those things yet. But it wasn't too slippery. It wasn't too bad running in the snow except when I was heading into the wind. When I was heading into the wind I kept my eyes open just a tiny slit so that I could see where I was going. The snow got deeper as the run went on and I had a hard time telling the difference between the sidewalk and the road. There was one stretch that I thought I was running on the sidewalk, but when I got to a cross-street, I realized I was on the shoulder of the road. Oh well. And twice in the neighborhood I slipped off the sidewalk, but didn't fall.

I'm glad I ran early. There's a lot more snow now than there was when I ran. I've got a longer fartlek run scheduled tomorrow. I'll have to see what happens with the snow and may end up on the treadmill tomorrow.

Objective: Fartlek Run - 10 miles w/8 x 20 sec. @ 3K pace.

Weather at 6:00 am: 26°F, 57% humiditiy, wind 6 mph SSW.

The sidewalks/roads were not condusive to a fast pace this morning. For the most part, they had been shoveled or plowed, but a patchy layer of snow/ice still remained. Some areas were better than that and some were worse. I had to trudge through a fair amount of snow, especially when crossing side streets where the met the road I was running on. I sometimes switched between the sidewalk and the shoulder of the road, whichever was clearer, but had to jump over a pile of snow plow gunk in order to do so.

I ran two miles to warm up, and then ran faster for about 20 seconds at the beginning of each remaining mile. It wasn't always precisely at the start of the mile because I would have to wait until I had a relatively clear stretch of road in front of me. My training plan says to run the faster sections at 3K pace, and according to McMillan, my 3K pace is 8:14. However, it was all I could do to run fast and keep an eye on the time so that I went for about 20 seconds. I had no idea what pace I was running. It turns out I ran quite a bit faster on those bits than I was supposed to. I didn't time the first one with the lap button, but my paces for the other 7 fast 20-second bits were 7:01/mi, 7:01/mi, 6:42/mi, 6:38/mi, 6:51/mi, 6:40/mi, 6:06/mi. I don't know whether it's okay to run the short distances at those speeds or whether I should try to slow down to around 8:14 next time I do a workout like this, which will be next Tuesday. But when I do it next Tuesday, the fast sections are supposed to be 25 instead of 20 seconds, and the next Tuesday after that, they are supposed to last for 30 sec.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:31/mile.

Weather at 6 am: 26°F, 63% humidity, wind 5.8 mph SE.

I ran the same route as yesterday and it was much drier and clearer today thanks to the warm temperatures during the day yesterday. I would say the sidewalks were about 95% clear today.

It was a fairly uneventful run. I started out quite slow, but got a little faster over the course of the run. I also was kind of late getting out, so for the later part of the run I could feel the sun rising behind me. It was very bright and I was glad I was facing away from the sun at that point.

I was up kind of late last night getting some laundry done so that I'd have clean running clothes to wear this morning.

Progression run - 9 miles w/ last 15 min. moderate. Average pace: 10:21.

Weather at 5:50 am: 26°F, 92% humidity, wind 2 mph ENE, light fog. The fog wasn't dense enough to bother me. I could see fine, except that I wasn't wearing my glasses.

I ran the same route on Tuesday and Wednesday this week and I could have run that same route today with a slight modification, but I decided to do something different. The routes I most often do, which go either east or south from my house tend to start out uphill and finish downhill. Today I went west from my house and ran basically to my office and back home (though I didn't go quite as far as my office - I could see it from the furthest point I ran to), which is most downhill for the first half of the run and most uphill for the second half. I guess that makes it a good workout.

My split times for the easy portion varied between 10:18 and 11:26 pace. My split times for the moderate portion were 1 mile @ 8:54 and 0.75 mile @ 8:46/mile.

I think next time I do a progression run I'm going to turn off the automatic mile splits on my Garmin. That way I can get just an average pace for the whole easy portion, an average pace for the moderate portion, and an average overall pace.

There was one section of the run that I had to be careful where I stepped to avoid goose poop on the sidewalk. We get a lot of that this time of year. I guess we're in the migratory path for the geese or something. I saw a whole bunch of them yesterday when I was out walking with my coworker. It was near my office that I encountered the goose poop this morning.

Easy run plus 6 x 10 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:42.

Weather at 6:10 am: 35°F, 44% humidity, wind 3 mph ESE.

I tried to focus on swinging my elbows back. Still, I didn't run very fast. Each time after I focused on the elbows moving back, I then had to focus on relaxing my shoulders. It's hard to do both. I found that I naturally had a lot more arm swing on the hill sprints where I was trying to run fast.

My paces for the hill sprints were: 7:00, 7:40, 8:13, 8:42, 8:46, 7:36. I knew that I was getting slower with each successive one, so I made a conscious effort to go faster on the last one.

I had intended to get up early and do the shred before the run, since this was a short run today, but I didn't get up early enough to do it before I had to drive son #2 to seminary. So after the run, I got breakfast for son #3 and daughter, and then did the shred, and then drove son #3 to school early for math olympians. Then I came home and had my own breakfast, got ready for work (actually I'm not quite all the way ready for work yet), and got my daughter out the door for the school bus.

Progression run - 14 miles with last 20 minutes moderate, uphill if possible (it was possible). Average pace: 10:08.

Weather from 8:30 - 11:00 am: 41°F, 35% humidity, wind 7.3 mph SSE.

I turned off the auto lap feature on my Garmin so that I could just record one lap for the easy portion, and one lap for the moderate portion so that I could get average pace for those two portions. Average pace for the first 12 miles was 10:22. Average pace for the last 20:55 (2.32 miles) was 8:59.

I did the nearly the same route that I did two weeks ago, which is an out-and-back that heads north through Arapahoe County. I ran this route in order to have the last 20 minutes be uphill, and it really was almost all uphill. It was pretty difficult. I maintained what I would consider to be a moderate pace, but it was possibly more than a moderate effort because of the hills. Not only was the last 20 minutes uphill, but there was a lot of uphill in the 5 miles before that.

I bought a new pair of shoes this afternoon. I tried on the Brooks Adrenaline and some Asics ( I don't know what they were), but ended up sticking with the Saucony Omni series. I'm wearing the new shoes around the house right now in an effort to break them in.

Fartlek run - 10 miles w/ 8 x 25 sec. @ 3K pace.

Weather 9:20-11:00 am: 48°F, 28% humidity, wind 4 mph S.

We are having freakishly warm weather. I should have worn a short-sleeved shirt.

This was kind of a hard workout after Saturday's long run, even with a rest day in between. I was supposed to do 4 miles today and do this workout tomorrow, but I switched them because I had more time today on account of the holiday.

I took my mp3 player, which I haven't been doing lately, because it was warm enough that I didn't need to wear my warm ear cover thing. I have an arm band that holds my mp3 player. On my second fast segment today, my mp3 player fell out of the arm band. This has happened before and I've been meaning to sew up the bottom of the arm band (it's open at the top and the bottom) but have never gotten around to it. The mp3 player hit the ground harder this time because I was running faster and the little button in the middle of the dial fell out. However, I was able to snap it back in and it seems to be working fine.

Since I was in the middle of a fast segment and didn't finish it because of dropping the mp3 player, I ran a little ways more and then redid that second fast section. When I looked at the data after the run, I realized that I did 22 seconds of that fast section before stopping because of the dropped mp3 player, so if I count that fast section, I actually did 9 fast runs instead of 8. And once again, I ran them faster than I could probably run a 3K. My paces for the fast sections were 7:29 (uphill), 6:27 (this was the short one where I dropped the mp3 player), 6:29, 6:40, 6:57, 6:14, 6:32, 7:13, 6:37.

Easy run. Average pace 10:58.

Weather: 35°F, 48% humidity, wind 8 mph SW, clear skies and (with a nod to Snoqualmie) a waning crescent moon.

I really took to heart the directive to take easy runs easy today. Some days are just really slow. I guess I was worn out from yesterday. I was glad that today was a short run.

After the run I got breakfast for the kids and did a few things for them, and then did the shred. I feel like I need to do the shred 2-3 times/week to keep my upper body strength up.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:51/mile.

Weather from 5:40 to 7:40 am: 44°F, 11% humidity, wind 11 mph SW.

Another slow, easy run. The wind was kind of a factor today. I spent a good portion of the run running either south or west into the wind and it slowed me down a bit. I did get faster over the course of the run, however. My first 5 miles were all over 11 minutes, and the other 6 were all under 11 minutes. With a couple of exceptions, each mile was faster than the one before and I ran the last mile in 10:09.

I've got a little tightness in my right hamstring. I noticed it last night when I walked to a neighbor's house. I could feel it this morning when I started running, but it got better as the run progressed.

I need to get more sleep. It's hard for me to get to bed early because I often have to stay up in order to pick my son up from work at 10:00 pm. That was the situation last night because my husband was at a rehearsal until after 10:00. That will probably be the situation again tonight because the boy works until 10:00 and my husband is going down to Colorado Springs for a convention and may not be back before 10:00. I've really got to teach the kid to drive so that he can drive himself to and from work.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:52.

Weather at 6:30 am: 45°F, 28% humidity, wind 10 mph SW, partly cloudy skies, which made for a fabulous pink and blue sunrise. It looks like our warm spell is ending. It's supposed to be cold tomorrow.

According to my training schedule I was suppose to run 9 miles with the last 15 minutes moderate this morning. I struggled with the decision all day yesterday, but I finally decided to run 4 miles easy instead because my hamstring was bothering me and I've generally been feeling tired and run down lately. I had to convince myself that taking it easy would benefit me more than running the 9 miles would. I am able to slack off on things in other areas of my life, but for some reason I am very strict with myself about running even though no one cares whether I run except for me.

My hamstring was a little tight on my run this morning, but not as bad as yesterday, so I think it's getting better. I ran pretty slowly today, but I did manage negative splits (11:25, 11:05, 10:44, 10:16). I've got 6 miles plus hill sprints scheduled for tomorrow. I'll probably do it, but will attempt to do the hill sprints a little slower than I have been doing them.

Easy run plus 8 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:19.

Weather at 7 am: 32°F, 53% humidity, wind 10 mph E.

I felt much better this morning! My hamstring did not bother me at all. I increased my cadence just slightly over what I had been doing the last few days but still kept it easy and increased my pace as a result. Splits for the first six miles were 10:58, 10:57, 10:38, 10:03, 9:50, 9:35.

I tried to take the hill sprints slower than I have been doing them lately, while still going a little harder than an easy pace. Paces on the hill sprints were 8:28, 7:51, 8:55, 8:14, 8:11, 8:21, 8:04, 8:32. That's probably more the range they ought to be in.

Near the end of my run before I did the hill sprints I passed a woman who was walking a very large dog (the dog was on leash and didn't bother me at all). I just said to her, "That's a big dog." She said, "He would like to run with you." That was the end of the conversation because they I was past her, but it got me thinking. I don't deserve to have an opinion because I have never owned a dog, but I'm wondering whether if you have a dog that needs to run, you're obligated to become a runner so you can run with the dog. I guess you can take the dog to an off-leash area and let the dog run, and I saw a guy the other day who was riding a bike and was holding a leash with a dog running along side him. But it seems like it would just be more convenient to be able to run with the dog. It's neither her nor there, I suppose; just something I was thinking about.

I've got a really busy day tomorrow and I need to get my long run done early in the morning. My oldest son has to be to work at 5:30 in the morning, which is not the shift he usually has on Saturday, but that will get me up and going early, which will be helpful. I'm supposed to do 15 miles with the last 30 minutes moderate and uphill if possible, and boy is it possible.

Progression run - 12 miles easy + 30 minutes moderate, uphill. Average pace: 9:56.

Weather from 5:45 to 8:30 am: 18°F, 91% humidity, wind 3 mph SSE, misty/foggy.

I meant to turn off the auto lap feature on my Garmin before I started, but I forgot. I left it on until after the start of the 12th mile and then turned it off so that I would have a good mechanism for timing my 30 minutes moderate. So I have mile splits for the 12 easy miles (ranging between 9:32 and 10:52), and just the average pace for the moderate part (9:03).

There was a gradual downhill for about 3 miles starting after the 8th mile. I got going a little too fast in that section because it was so easy. By the time I got to the moderate part, I was tired, but I pushed it a little and managed to increase the pace a little, but not a ton on account of the up hill.

I had to drop my son off at work at 5:30 this morning, and then went running after that. I had to go early because my husband is at a music teachers' conference and I had to take son #3 to a youth orchestra rehearsal at 9:15. I was actually done with my run this morning before the time that I have left on my run the last couple of Saturdays.

I was thinking about whether aerobic capacity or leg strength is my limiting factor, and I think it's leg strength. I'll have to look in my Hudson book and see what modifications to the training plan he says to make when leg strength is the limiting factor.

Fartlek run - 10 miles w/ 8 x 30 sec. at 5K-3K pace. Average pace: 10:18.

Weather at 6 am: 7°F, 85% humidity, wind 8.1 mph N, a thin layer of snow on the ground and snowing lightly.

I felt a little overdressed at first, but that was because I was running south, with the wind behind me. Once I turned north and started heading back towards home, I was plenty cold. My kids thought I looked pretty funny when I got home, all bundled up and covered with frost.

For the first part of the run I was the first person to make footsteps in the snow. That changed when I started passing high schools (3 of them) and it was time for school to start. My shoes make kind of a squeaky sound on the snow. You know in the cartoons when people are always slipping on banana peels? I saw a banana peel on the sidewalk this morning, as if the sidewalks weren't already slippery enough with the snow. But I didn't step on it and I didn't slip.

I tried to take my fast parts a little slower than I have been and I did manage to slow them down. I should probably slow them down about 10-20 seconds/mile more. It's hard to see my pace on my Garmin while I'm running them because I only run for 30 seconds and the Garmin has a hard time adjusting the pace quick enough, and I set it to the screen where I'm seeing the lap time so that I can time the 30 seconds. This screen doesn't include current pace. I guess I could modify it so that it would. In any case, the pace on my fast 30 second portions was 8:46 (uphill), 7:53, 8:07, 7:56, 7:52, 8:07, 8:12, 7:56.

I actually felt pretty good today. But I'm not sure I want to go out in the cold again. I'm thinking of working from home even though the roads aren't that bad.

It's supposed to snow all day today, though it isn't snowing very hard, and it's supposed to be even colder tomorrow morning. I'll have to see if I have the intestinal fortitude, as it were, to get out in the cold and snow for another 10 miles (but just easy, without the fartlek) tomorrow.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:48/mile.

I wimped out and ran on the treadmill this morning. When I got up the local news was saying that it was -1 with the wind chill making it -13. I wasn't brave enough to spend nearly two hours running outside in those temperatures, so I packed it in and drove to work and ran on the treadmill there. Running on the treadmill takes me a lot of extra time in the morning because I have to drive to work to do it and then drive back home to get the kids off to school.

To mitigate the boredom of the treadmill, I did a 10 minute warm up, and then switched between 6.0 mph (10:00 pace) and 6.5 mph (9:13 pace) every 5 minutes. It made it easier to only have to think about the next 5 minutes instead of the next 80 minutes or something like that. The treadmill won't let you enter a running time more than 60 minutes, so I ran for 60 minutes, took a bathroom break, and then ran for another 40 minutes. The t.v. was off and no one was there for most of the time, so I just listened to my mp3 player and I don't have any books on it right now because the one's I got from the library a while ago have all expired.

I want to get back outside tomorrow. It's not supposed to be quite as cold. But there is a layer of snow on the ground right now with little chance of it melting today. I don't have time to drive to work tomorrow morning, so I'll have to run outside, I guess.

Easy run followed by 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:25.

Weather at 6:30 am: 33°F (above freezing - hooray!), 35% humidity, wind 17 mph avg, gusting to 23 mph, NW. The wind really didn't bother me for the first 2/3 of my run and then it picked up in a big way. My hill sprints ended up being into the wind. Fun times.

I was just glad to be back outside today. I can't believe I used to run on the treadmill every day (when I started running not quite two years ago). The 10 miles on the treadmill kind of did a number on my knee yesterday, but I iced it and used the foam roller on it last night, and it's not too bad this morning. It didn't bother me at all on my run.

I slowed the hill sprints way down from what I've been doing recently. The wind helped me with that. Here are my paces from the hill sprints: 8:19, 8:55, 8:38, 7:59, 8:03, 9:09, 8:23, 8:00, 8:28, 8:50.

The hill that I do the hill sprints on is on a trail that leads into the green belt that runs between my neighborhood and the middle school. When I was running the hill this morning, it was the time when kids are heading to the middle school and I encountered several of them on the hill. It's a good thing I don't embarrass easily. I must have looked like a complete dork. There were two boys walking down the hill while I was doing my last hill sprint and they didn't do as good a job of moving to the other side of the path out of my way as I would have liked them to. At least I didn't run into them.

The wind is really howling and shaking my house right now.

Progression run - 2 miles easy, 6 miles moderate, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 9:26.

Weather at 6 am: 24°F, 38% humidity, wind 7 mph WNW.

I feel really good about this run. I was a little apprehensive about the 6 miles moderate before I started the run, but then I did it! In fact, it was a little irksome to slow down when I got to the 9th mile. That's probably because I was going downhill. By the time I got to the 10th mile, which was more uphill, I was feeling a little better about going slow. In any case, my easy miles after the moderate part were a lot faster than my easy miles at the beginning. Split times were: 10:46, 10:40, 9:31, 9:08, 9:26, (now the downhill starts), 8:48, 8:27, 8:21, 9:36, 9:34.

I've got an easy day tomorrow. The schedule says rest or cross-train. I'll probably run 4 miles easy.

I started my core abs class at work yesterday. It's for a half hour on Wednesdays for 7 weeks. I got the impression that the instructor went easy on us yesterday because it was the first class and that it will get harder. One of the women who was in the class asked me later in the afternoon if I was sore from the class and I had to admit that I wasn't. I hope I didn't make her feel bad. But I've been doing these exercises in the shred, even though I haven't done the shred in a while, and I can do them.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:16.

Weather at 6:30 am: 25°F, 54% humidity, wind 7 mph SSW.

I felt better today than I thought I might after that relatively intense run yesterday. I guess it helps that I got to bed a little bit earlier.

I've got two kids complaining of sore throats and I'm feeling just slightly congested myself. I hope this doesn't turn into anything significant. I'll drink lots of water today and try to get to bed early again tonight.

Long run. Average pace: 10:15.

Weather from 6:45 - 10:45 am: low temp 34°F, high temp 48°F, 23% humidity, wind 10 mph SW. Notice the temperature differential. That's what happens when I begin a long run before sunrise.

First, I'll tell you about the run. I started from the Goodson Rec Center and ran south on the Highline Canal Trail for 2.5 miles then turned around and ran back. I stopped at my car and got my sunglasses because the sun had just come up. While I was at my car, I saw a woman run past me on the trail. I started running again in the same direction as the woman and realized I was running slightly faster than her. I caught up with her and then slowed down to her speed and ran and talked with her for a little while. It was nice. But I didn't stay with her too long because she was going slower than I wanted to go. I ran 6 miles north on the trail from my car and then back again, which made a total of 17. I was stretching after the run and a guy came up and started stretching. He had just finished 20 miles. He said he saw me near the end and tried to catch up with me but couldn't. I had actually picked up the pace just a little on the last 4 miles because I was tired and wanted to finish. My pace on the last four miles was 9:51, 9:41, 9:56, 9:12.

Okay, now I'll tell you that this run was the stupidest thing I could have done today. I had a little tightness all along the back of my left leg yesterday. But it wasn't too bad, and I did get more sleep than usual, so I got up and ran anyway. While I was running it was hurting a bit and I thought about cutting the run short. But I didn't cut the run short, and now it's really hurting - to the point that I'm limping. The pain is concentrated at the back of my left knee and the top of the calf. Note that this is not the knee that was bothering me earlier in the week - it's the other one. Fortunately I have a rest day tomorrow. But I'm thinking I may need a longer rest than that. I hope that nothing serious is wrong and that it won't take too many days for this pain to go away. Why do I have such a hard time running less than I have planned? When will I learn my lesson?

*Update*

I iced my knee, took some ibuprofen, and took a nap and my knee is feeling MUCH BETTER. I can still feel a twinge, but I can walk without a limp now and it actually feels better than it did yesterday. Maybe I'll be okay by Monday.

Also, I meant to mention that this week is the highest mileage week I have ever done and is likely to remain in that position for at least a few weeks. Next week will be lower mileage, even if I don't knock things down because of soreness.

40 minutes on the elliptical.

My training plan was beckoning, "Come run hill repeats. Come on, it'll be fun." But my knee is still bothering me just a bit and so I ignored the training plan and drove to work and used the elliptical. Also, I didn't get the laundry done and didn't have clean outdoor running clothes. I have to say, I hate the elliptical more than I hate the treadmill. I could not wait for that workout to finish.

I think I may try to run tomorrow, but not the 10-mile progression run that's on my schedule. I'm going to tentatively move that to Thursday and do today's planned workout tomorrow. It's supposed to be 2 miles easy, then 6 x 1 minute hill repetitions, and then 2 more miles easy. I think I'll use the 2 miles to run to a certain hill that I'm thinking of, do the repeats, and then run home. That really doesn't sound too difficult to me.

In other news, my husband and things 1 and 3 are all home from work/school today because they are all sick. I'm glad to be at work and away from them. So far I'm feeling okay in that department.

2 miles easy, 6 x 1 min hill repeats, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 10:10/mile.

Weather at 6:30 am: 27°, 66% humidity, no significant wind.

My pace on the 2 miles and change before the hill repeats was 10:36. My pace on the 2 miles and change after the hill repeats was 10:00. Pace on the hill repeats was 8:06, 8:21, 8:23, 8:18, 8:11, 8:20.

A 1-minute hill repeat is a lot harder than an 8-second hill sprint. But 1 minute sounds a lot easier than 2 minutes. I've got this same work out in two weeks, but the hill repeats are 2 minutes instead of 1 minute. I used to different hill this morning than I use for my hill sprints. This is a longer hill, but about the same grade (6-10%). I think the hill that I used today is long enough for the 2-minute hill repeats in two weeks. I was only running about half way up it today.

My leg felt fine except that I had a little tightness in the calf on the easy part after the hill repeats. I did some extra stretching after the run and it feels okay now.

Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:00.

Weather at 6:30 am: 35°F, 35% humidity, wind avg. 5mph, max 10 mph, ESE.

The wind was more of factor today than yesterday. And the route that I took today is mostly uphill when going south and mostly downhill when going north. The wind was coming from the south, so uphill was into the wind, and on the downhill I had the wind behind me. As a result, there is quite a difference between my pace for the going south part (around 10:30) and my pace for the going north part (around 9:30). So I'm wondering about the principle of taking easy runs easy. If sometimes on an easy run 10:30 feels easy and sometimes, even on the same run, 9:30 feels easy, is it okay to include both paces in an easy run?

I got to the hill for the hill sprints at what was apparently the prime time for walking to the middle school (about 7:35). As I've mentioned before, the hill where I run hill sprints is on the path through the green belt between my neighborhood and the middle school. Since I did 10 hill sprints, I spent quite a while on the hill, and I saw lots of kids. I don't know these kids and I don't care if I look like a dork to them. In any case, my paces for the hill sprints were 7:50, 8:01, 8:00, 7:27, 7:57, 8:02,7:46, 8:12, 7:49, 8:20. That's perhaps a little faster than I should take the hill sprints, but it's so hard to figure out and adjust my pace within 8 seconds.

My goal on days I drive the boy to seminary is to get up early enough that I can get dressed for running before I drive him, so that I can head out on the run as soon as I get home. I didn't manage to do that today. I got up in time to put on my shoes, coat, and glasses, and drive him in my pajamas. So now I'm running late for the rest of the morning. I better stop writing stuff on this blog and get busy!

Oh, one more thing. I have a half hour core/abs class at work today at noon.

Objective: Progression Run - 10 miles, last 6 moderate.

Result: Progression Run - 10.53 miles, last 6.53 moderate (bordering on hard). Average pace: 9:39.

Weather at 6 am: 35°F, 23% humidity, wind 6 mph SSE.

I started out slowly and kept it pretty slow for the first four miles, but then I sped up fairly significantly once I hit the speed-up point. Splits were: 10:59, 10:39, 10:56, 10:31, 9:32, 9:12, 8:44, 8:51, 8:54, 8:51.

I ended up going a little farther than I had intended. I took my standard 10-mile route that I've done a lot lately, but I don't like the last part of it, so I changed it up and went home a different way. I was afraid the different way wouldn't be long enough, so I added in a loop. It turns out the loop was a little too big. I wanted to end close to but not under 10 miles. Oh well.

I'm trying to figure out how to approach my Saturday run this week. The description of it is "Hard Long Run - 1 mile easy, 10 miles @ marathon pace + 10-20 sec./mile, 1 mile easy." The thing is that my marathon pace, according to McMillan and my most recent race, which was a 5K on Thanksgiving Day, my marathon pace is 9:58. If I had 10-20 seconds to that, then I'm at easy run pace. I've been running a lot faster than that on the moderate part of my progression runs (see today's splits). However, on Saturday I've got to go 10 miles at whatever pace I decide, with only one mile of warmup before. My progression runs have been no longer than 6 miles with at least 2 miles of warmup before. So I'm not sure what pace to target for this run on Saturday. I'm thinking maybe around 9:30-9:40. It is supposed to be a hard long run. I guess I'll just have to see how I feel.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:29.

Weather at 6:30 am: 42°F, 24% humidity, winds 5-12 mph ESE.

Just an easy run today. The wind was a factor some of the time. I've got a little delayed-onset muscle soreness in both quads from the core class I went to on Wednesday. He had us sit on the floor in kind of a v shape, leaning back part way with legs off the ground, and pull our knees in towards our chests then out again repeatedly. It really killed in quads for some reason.

My 12-year-old son is in the school spelling bee this afternoon. This is his third year in the spelling bee. Last year he took second place. He got out because he garbled what he said even though he knew the spelling of the word (the word was 'angstrom'). I hope he doesn't make a mistake like that this year. He is favored to win this year. These things make me really nervous. I sat through it sweating buckets last year. I should try not to get so worked up about it. We've studied this year, but not quite as much as I would have liked, but I think he's in pretty good shape. But he was grumpy this morning. I hope he calms down by this afternoon.

**UPDATE - Spelling Bee Report**

Argh!! They were doing a round with 6-7 kids in it and Sam got teriyaki. He said t-e-r, started to say a and changed it to i, then y-a-k-i. He clearly knew the right spelling, but they got him out for his stumble. The strange thing was that everyone else in that round also got out, except for one kid, who I think was a 4th grader. So they declared that kid the winner, but they needed a runner-up. So they continued the spelling bee without the winning kid and went on with all of the people who had gotten out in the round. It took several more rounds, with the words getting progressively harder, but Sam went on to win as the runner-up. If that strange fluke round hadn't happened, I'm pretty sure that other kid would have gotten out along the way and Sam would have won. He was runner-up last year too because he garbled a word that he knew how to spell. Argh!! I can't believe it.

Now here's the best story from the spelling bee. A girl had the word "character." She started out saying c-a, and my daughter, who is in first grade, was sitting beside me and said to me, "That's not right. It's c-h." Maybe she's my future spelling champion.

Long (sorta) run - 1 mile easy, 10 miles at marathon pace (maybe - could be wishful thinking), 1 mile easy. Average pace: 9:33/mile.

Weather from 9-11 am: 46°F, 30% humidity, wind 5-10 mph SW.

I went on the Highline Canal trail again because I didn't feel like running hills. There are a few small hills on the trail, but nothing like the hills on the streets where I normally run. It was really unseasonably warm and I didn't notice the wind at all until the last mile. If I can maintain this pace in my marathon, I will be thrilled. I think I can run a faster pace than this in my half marathon in March. My run today was only a mile short of a half marathon, and it wasn't really that hard. I had to look at my watch a lot to try to maintain a steady pace. I tried to keep it around 9:30 for the specific pace miles, but got a little anxious and sped up just a bit the last couple of miles. In any case, my splits were 10:19, 9:25, 9:34, 9:33, 9:28, 9:31, 9:24, 9:24, 9:27, 9:13, 9:12, 10:04.

Thus ends my cut back week. I plan to be back up over 50 miles next week.

Speed Intervals: 3 miles easy, 14 x 1 min @ 5K pace/1 min. easy, 3 miles easy.

Weather at 6:00 am: 34°F, 68% humidity, wind avg. 6 mph, gusting to 12 mph, S.

I was supposed to do 15 intervals instead of 14 but I got messed up on the counting. I tried to use the workout feature on my Garmin, which I have never used before. I programmed the workout into the Garmin correctly, but then I wasn't sure whether the Garmin automatically recorded a lap each time it started a new step in the workout, so I was hitting the lap button manually at the beginning and end of each interval. As it turns out, the Garmin was doing it automatically too, and so I got through the intervals twice as fast as I was supposed to. I finally realized this when the Garmin said the workout was done and I knew I was nowhere near done. I wasn't sure how many intervals I had done though, because I had stopped hitting the lap button manually at some point. So I just guessed and did 5 more intervals, timing them manually. It turns out I had done 9 before (though the 9th was almost 2 minutes because the Garmin quit the workout before I realized it), so I had a total of 14 intervals. I was supposed to do 15. Oh well. So now I know how the workouts feature works and I'll use it again next time I have a relatively complicated workout that I need help keeping track of.

Incidentally, my pace on the intervals was: 8:21, 8:12, 7:50, 8:17, 8:24, 8:08, 8:30, 8:39, 8:48, 7:40, 7:41, 8:28, 7:50, 7:41. According to McMillan, may 5K pace is 8:47, so I was a little under that most of the time. The last 5 I didn't look at the pace on the watch at all. I just ran by feel and with one exception was about a minute faster/mile than I was supposed to be.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:10.

Weather at 6 am: 30°F, 47% humidity, just a little wind part of the time, full moon in the west followed by sunrise in the east.

I ran my normal 10 mile route that I've done a lot recently, but in reverse. I never realized how many downhills there are when I go my standard direction. I saw more runners than usual out this morning.

I almost got hit by a car. The problem always comes when I'm running along the left side of a street and someone is turning right from a side street onto the street I'm running on. They look left the whole time and never look to the right until after they've started moving. That's what happened this morning. The car was stopped and there was some traffic coming from the car's left, so I started going, but then the car started pulling forward, and so I stopped. The driver then looked to the right and saw me and stopped. She mouthed "sorry" and then I continued on. She was probably more shaken up by it than I was. I've had this situation several times as a runner. I'm going to have to pay attention to whether I look to the right when I'm in that situation as a driver.

Easy run 8.5 miles + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:20.

Weather at 5:30 am: 20°F, 83% humidity, wind 10 mph S. We got maybe a half inch of snow last night and it stuck to the grass, but only to some sidewalks. The sidewalks and road shoulders that I ran on were sometimes clear, mostly had a thin layer of crunchy snow, and in a handful of spots, were icy and slick. I slipped probably 5 times, but was always able to keep my balance and didn't fall.

I went a little slower on the hill sprints than I have other times. Maybe I was more tired, or maybe it was because of the little bit of snow/ice on the hill. In any case, my paces on the hill sprints were: 8:29, 8;12, 8:42, 8:26, 8:54, 8:03, 8:24, 9:12, 9:14, 8:25.

By new boss is supposed to arrive in Denver today. She lives in Singapore, but has been in California for the last couple of days. I've never met her before - only talked on the phone within the last couple of weeks. She's a runner, so we'll have to see if we can work out a time to run together while she's here.

Threshhold run - 2 miles easy (11:02/mile), 15 minutes @ half-marathon pace (9:21/mile), 2 minutes easy (10:54/mile), 15 minutes @ half-marathon pace (9:14/mile), 3 miles easy (10:06/mile)

Weather at 5:30 am: 22°F, 58% humidity, wind 7 mph S.

I had a busy morning but managed to get the run in. I don't have much to say about this run except that it is hard for my to run at a targeted pace when it's dark because I have to check my watch so often to make sure I'm on pace, and while I wear a head lamp (it probably needs new batteries) and I can turn the light on the watch, it's just harder to see the watch.

I met my boss last night. She seems very nice. But she does think I'm a little crazy to run 6 days/week. I've got a 5 mile easy run planned for tomorrow, so we're going to see if we can find a time to run together tomorrow. She leaves tomorrow night.

Easy run with my boss. Average pace was not too bad while we were running, but I don't have a good figure for the average pace because we walked a fair chunk at the end. We had just a little bit of snow last night, so it was cold and slick. She had never seen snow in her life before yesterday. With the cold and snow and the elevation and hills, she was kind of thrown for a loop. Also, I'm actively training for a marathon right now and she's not. We had intended to go 5 miles, but we cut the run short. I hope I didn't make her feel bad.

Progression run - 16+ miles with last 30 minutes hard and uphill.

Weather: 26°F, 72% humidity, hardly any wind.

This was a very difficult run in many ways. I left the house after some discord at home. I got started and my legs felt heavy and I was worrying about having to do 30 minutes hard at the end of the run. And then a mile into my run I did something that I've never done on a run that I can recall. I fell down. I tripped over an uneven spot in the sidewalk and fell forward. I caught myself with my hands and since I had gloves on, I got my gloves dirty and didn't scrape up my hands. And I didn't even fall hard enough to tear a hole in my gloves. But I must have banged my left knee just a little bit. I think I have a small bruise. I wasn't really hurt, but I kind of wanted to cry and just turn around and go home. But I didn't cry. And I didn't go home. I got up and dusted myself off and kept going.

I ran the first 13 miles at an average pace of 10:06. In truth, some of it was considerably slower than that and some was considerably faster. This route has a really significant downhill stretch for about 4.5 miles starting at mile 7, so my pace was around 9:00 through that section, though I was trying to keep it easy because I knew that what goes down must come up when you're running a loop. I started the real uphill after mile 12 and then started running harder a mile later. My pace on the last 30 minutes (3.36 miles) was 8:55. It was definitely hard. I really had to dig deep to finish this run. And the second that my watch said it had been 30 minutes for the last part, I stopped and walked the rest of the way home. It was only a few house lengths anyway.

I'm glad this run is over. Now I've got to drive up to Fort Collins to attend the all-state orchestra concert that my son is playing in. He's first chair in the bass section. Less that sound too impressive, there are two all-state orchestras, and he is in the lower one. Still, we're proud of him for winning section leader. He didnt' feel like his audition went very well, but apparently it was better than the others.

Hill Repetations - 2 miles easy, 6 x 2 min. uphill @ 10K effort w/jog-back recoveries, 2 miles easy.

Weather starting at about 7:30 am: low 34°F, high 46°F, 20% humidity, wind 12 S.

I thought on Saturday that I didn't make any holes in my gloves when I fell, but I was wrong. I washed the gloves after Saturday's run and this morning discovered one hole in the palm and one hole in the thumb of the left glove. It's too bad because they are my SmartWool glove liners. Maybe I'll try to sew the holes closed. That's what I did with my SmartWool socks when my toe made a hole.

I really felt sluggish when I started out this morning, probably because of my hard run last Saturday. My legs were leaden for the first two miles and then at the end of those two miles I went down the hill that I use for the hill repetitions and at that point I started feeling better. Still running uphill at a decent pace for 2 minutes was really hard. I made it up to the top of the hill in that time, so if I ever want to do longer hill repeats, I'll have to find another hill (no problem there). However, there are no more hill repeats on my current training schedule. In any case, my pace on the hill repeats was 8:56, 9:05, 8:54, 9:10, 8:59, 8:47. According to McMillan, my 10K pace is 8:56, so I was pretty close. I'm sure I went faster on the first minute of the hill repeat than on the second, but that's how it averaged out. I felt a lot better running the two miles home than I did running the two miles to the hill.

Tomorrow schedule says 10 miles, with the last 8 miles hard. That sounds scary to me. If my legs feel anything like they did today, I may delay the start of the hard portion or do away with it all together and run 10 miles easy. We'll see.

I didn't have to go to work today, so it was nice to be able to sleep in and run a little later, but that accounted for the relatively significant change in temperature over the course of my run.

Progression run - 10 miles, last 8 miles hard. Average pace: 9:11.

Weather: 40°F, 26% humidity, wind 20 mph SW, clear skies with a waning crescent moon. I guess it was fairly windy, but I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the wind.

Yesterday I was questioning my ability to complete this run and was thinking about modifying it to make it easier. But then I remembered that I had to be back from my run in time to drive my oldest son and a string bass to school before 7:00. I usually get home from my runs around 7:30 or even 8:00. My first approach to this issue was to try to be like Snoqualmie and get up absurdly early. I got up earlier than usual, but not quite early enough. I was out the door by 5:15, but needed to have been out by 5:00. So the only recourse left to me then was to either cut the run short or run fast. I tried to run fast. I was home from the run by 6:50 and when I got here the boy wasn't even ready to go. Here are my splits: 10:30, 10:11, 9:40, 9:11, 9:38 (now it changes from generally uphill to generally downhill), 8:48, 8:20, 8:26, 8:39, 8:28.

I wish I could just hang out at home and take it easy and take a nap after I've done hard workouts like this, but alas, I have to go to work and sit at a desk all day. I'll probably have dead legs the next couple of days because I really pushed it today.

Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:43.

Weather: 35°F, 34% humidity, wind 6 NW, partly cloudy with a waning crescent moon.

I drove thing 2 to seminar at 6:00 this morning before my run and while I was driving him I had an intense desire to go back home and go back to bed. But I went back home and ran instead. My legs actually felt better than I thought they would, but I had a general tiredness and so I made sure to stay at an easy pace. None of my mile splits was under 10:00. My pace on the hill sprints ranged from 8:10 to 9:12, with seven out of the ten under 9:00 pace. Since I was a little late on my run I didn't encounter any middle schoolers on my hill. I saw the last of the middle schoolers walking down the hill as I approached it before starting the hill sprints.

I was thinking about treadmill running vs. running outside yesterday. I realized that when I run outside I really have no sense of the passage of time. I wear a watch and so I know what time it is and I know roughly how long the run will take me, but most of the time I'm focusing on distance and don't notice, for example, when I've been out for an hour. When I run on a treadmill, it's all about time, trying to keep going for 30 more minutes or something like that. I find it much more pleasant to focus on distance rather than time.

Objective: Threshold Run - 2 miles easy, 5 miles @ half-marathon pace, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 9:47.

Weather: 22°F, 52% humidity, wind 4.6 SSW.

I've been running slight variations of the same route a lot lately. I could have done that again today. Instead, I ran a route that I haven't run in a while. It basically goes from my home to my office and then back home. It's generally downhill from home to my office and uphill coming back. I tried to keep myself from going too fast on the downhill, but then I pushed it a little more on the uphill because I was closer to being done and I was feeling pretty good. I would have called it a moderate effort, not a hard effort. Based on my last 5K, McMillan says my half-marathon pace is 9:27, but I think it's a little faster than that. In any case, my splits were: 11:13, 10:48, 9:32, 9:15, 9:17, 9:12, 8:49, 10:02, 9:52.

I'm working at home today so that I can get laundry done. I go through running clothes really quickly with running 6 days/week and wearing two shirts on every run.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:36/mile.

Weather: 28°F, 22% humidity, wind 10 mph S.

I drove thing 2 to seminary, then came back home and went in the house for a few minutes, and then stepped outside to run. It had been dark when I drove him to seminary at 6:00, but I was surprised how light it was when I stepped out of the house at 6:15. I've been getting out in the morning every weekday, but when I get out earlier while it's still dark, I guess I don't really notice at what point it gets light. The sun wasn't up at 6:15 this morning, but it was starting to get light. We get earlier sunrises (and earlier sunsets) here in Denver, than in some places such as Salt Lake City. We're on the eastern edge of the time zone, while they're on the western edge of the same time zone. We have flat plains to the east while they have mountains to the east. These two things combine to make quite a difference in the time of sunrise.

I ran my trusty old 4 mile loop that I used to run all the time when 4 miles was a common distance for me. It was definitely easier today than it used to be.

I've got a crazy workout tomorrow during which I have to alternate between 1 minute at 10K pace and 1 minute easy over the course of 5 miles. I suppose if I don't alternate precisely every minute, it's not a big deal.

I've got a really easy week next week. This Hudson plan seems to be throwing in an easy week every 3rd week at this point.

Fartlek + Progression. Average pace: 9:43.

Weather: 27°F, 63% humidity, wind 7.5 SE.

I ran on the Highline Canal Trail. It was covered with a thin layer of fresh snow when I started, but most of the snow was gone by the time I finished. When I got up this morning I didn't really want to go out and run because it looked so snowy and cold, but it turned out to be a beautiful day with clear blue skies and sun.

I ran the first 6 miles at an easy pace (10:24 avg), then for the next 5 miles I did 24 repeats of 1 minute at 10K pace (I shot for about 8:30, but might have been a little faster some of the time) and 1 minute easy. Then I did 1 mile easy (10:44), and finished with 2 miles hard (8:37 avg). I really pushed hard at the end.

To keep track of the 5 mile fartlek portion, I set up a workout out my Garmin that had the first 6 miles as one lap, the next 5 miles as one lap, the next mile as one lap, and the last 2 miles as one lap. During the second lap, I put my watch on a display that showed current pace (so I could try to get the right pace on the fast portions), lap distance (so I would know how far into the 5 miles I was), and lap time. Each time the seconds on the lap time got to 00, I would switch pace. If the minutes on the lap time was an even number, I ran fast, and if the minutes on the lap time was an odd number, I ran easy. I didn't track individual laps for each minute in the fartlek portion because that would just be way too many laps. This system won't quite work when I have a similar workout again in a few weeks because that time the fartlek/easy intervals are supposed to be 90 seconds.

I've got a really easy week next week. I'm feeling fairly strong and not particularly like I need a rest, but maybe I should take advantage of the easy week so that I'll be ready for the hard weeks that follow it.

No run today.

I felt fine on my run on Saturday and even afterwards for most of the day. In fact, as you may recall, I was complaining about having an easy week this week. What fools we mortals be.

On Saturday evening I developed a pain in the outside of my right leg a few inches above my ankle. It hurts when I put weight on it, not terrible pain, but enough to make me limp. It's only gotten worse since then. I'm worried about it.

No run again today. However, my leg feels somewhat improved. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to run in another day or two.

It's a shame that I can't run today. We are having unseasonably warm temperatures, and I can see a beautiful sunrise out my bedroom window right now.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:25.

Hooray! I was able to get out and run today. My leg felt fine in terms of the pain I've been having the last few days. However, I felt generally sluggish. It's interesting to me that I would feel sluggish, rather than fresh, after 3 days of rest. I suspect I'll feel better tomorrow because of having done an easy run today.

I'm glad that I've got an easy week in my training schedule this week. It makes it easy for me to cut back even more and really take it easy. I don't feel like I'm missing any key workouts.

I just watched a small thing that did my heart good. My two youngest (a 6th grade boy and a 1st grade girl) go to the same elementary school and ride the bus together. I sent the girl out the door first this morning because the boy was still getting his stuff together. After the boy went out the door, I went upstairs and watched them through a window (I can see the bus stop from there). My daughter was standing a ways away from the other kids at the bus stop, who are mostly 3rd-4th grade boys who stand there and throw rocks at a fence. She's probably smart to stay away from them. My son hadn't reached the bus stop yet. But when he did, he went and stood by his little sister until the bus came. I was just happy to see what appeared to be my big boy looking out for his little sister.

Easy run, sometimes bordering on moderate. Average pace: 9:54.

Weather at 5:30 am: 42°, 47% humidity, wind 5-10 mph SSE.

It was hard to get out of bed while it was still dark, but once I got outside I was happy to be out in the crisp pre-dawn air. My legs felt a lot fresher today than yesterday. That makes me wonder about taking a day off before my marathon, which is what my training plan says to do. Maybe it would be better to take the day or maybe two before that off, then just do a short, easy run the day before the race. Thoughts, anyone?

Easy +  (bordering on moderate) run. Average pace: 9:42.

Weather at 6:15 am: 22°F, 82% humidity, minimal wind.

I did a lot of cadence counting and thinking about cadence on my run this morning. During the first two miles, which I consider my warmup, my cadence was about 170-172. Later, when I was warmed up, it was around 176. My pace was faster with the 176 cadence, but wasn't really an increased level of effort since I was warmed up. However, I found that I hard a hard time increasing my cadence without increasing my pace. This lead me to some conclusions.

Pace is a product of cadence and stride length. If you're running at a given pace and you want to maintain that pace while increasing your cadence, you have to have a corresponding decrease in stride length. Theoretically, you could do this for any pace. However, I came to the conclusion that we each have a sort of minimal reasonable stride length. For certain slower paces, you would have to decrease your stride length beyond your minimal reasonable stride length in order to increase your cadence to 180. I think the minimal reasonable stride length can vary from person to person. So I guess my conclusion is that on an easy run, depending on your easy pace, it might not be reasonable to have a cadence of 180 because that would require your stide length to be shorter than you can comfortably maintain.

On a different (but possibly related) topic, my easy pace was faster yesterday and today than it has been recently. I guess that's what 3 consecutive rest days will do for you.

Bonnie said yesterday that she thought I can run my upcoming half marathon in 1:50. I appreciate the compliment, and it gives me something to shoot for. But that would be an average pace of 8:24. I wonder if I could do it. I've got to figure out a pacing strategy for the half marathon.

Time trial. 2 miles, easy 6.2 miles at 10K pace. Average pace: 8:36.

Splits: 9:53, 9:54, 8:21, 8:26, 8:22, 7:55, 8:14, 7:48

Weather at 7 am: 16°F, 53% humidity, minimal wind.

It turns out I was supposed to do two more miles slow after the 10K portion, but that detail got lost in the transfer of the training plan from the book to my spreadsheet. Oh well. Maybe I'll get out this evening and do 2 miles easy.

I was trying to hit between 8:00 and 8:30 for the 10K portion. My overall time for the 10K portion was 50:46.

I felt sluggish when I ran on Wednesday, but I felt really strong on Thursday, Friday, and today. When I felt good on Thursday and Friday, I figured that it was just because of the three days of rest I had at the first of the week, and I'm sure that is part of it. But I was surprised to still feel good today after having run easy, but faster than usual, the last couple of days. So I started looking for other explanations for my feeling good. On Tuesday afternoon I had a conversation with a friend and we decided that I would start keeping a food journal and would email her the previous day's entries each day to keep me accountable (I want to lose about 10 pounds). So I have been eating really well since Tuesday evening and haven't had any sugary stuff except for one cup of chocolate milk each morning and one square of Dove dark chocolate one day. I think it's probably a combination of the rest and eating right that is making me feel so good. I'm not going to rest three days every week to duplicate this feeling, but it motivates me to keep eating right. I'll do that and we'll see if I keep feeling good.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:45.

Weather at 6:30 am: 42°F, 21% humidity, wind 6 S.

I'm was still feeling pretty good this morning. There's no seminary this week until Friday because of CSAP testing (that's the statewide standardized test in Colorado), so I slept in a little bit. It's been getting light early enough in the morning now that I'm able to leave my head lamp at home most days. However, with the switch to daylight savings time next week, I'm going to be plunged back into darkness for a while.

While I was out running this morning it occurred to me that I'm about to turn 40 and I'm in the best shape I've been in in my life. That's a nice feeling.

Happy March everyone!

Fartlek Run. ~10 miles easy w/30 sec. @ 5K pace every 3 min. Average pace: 9:30.

Weather at 6 am: 53°F, 27% humidity, wind 20 mph SW. It really was unseasonably warm but fairly windy this morning.

I was a little tired this morning because I did a new Jillian Michael's DVD called No More Trouble Zones last night. It's an hour long and is pretty tough.

This run was an exercise in 3 times tables. When my total time hit 3 minutes, 6 minutes, 9 minutes, and so on, I ran faster for 3 seconds. That only worked up to 60 minutes and then the total time doesn't show seconds any more, so I had to switch to lap time, which worked for about a minute and then the auto lap feature threw me off. So then I turned auto lap off and was okay for the rest of the run. But that little mixup is the reason I ran 10.23 instead of just 10.

I think I might have a friend to run with tomorrow.

Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:23.

Weather at 6:30 am: 53°F, 28% humidity, very WINDY.

Too long since 3 day rest + not eating so swell the last few days + not enough sleep + wind = tired legs. I really struggled through today's run and went slower than the average pace would indicate for the first half or so when I was going into the wind. Of course the wind was from the southwest, and a huge portion of my run was going south and then going west. I did speed up a little once I started heading north and had the wind behind me, and that brought my average pace down a bit.

I went out and bought the March issue of Running Times yesterday. It has an article by Brad Hudson about hill sprints. Because of what it said in that article, I walked down the hill between hill sprints today, whereas I used to jog down. And I wasn't terrifically fast on my hill sprints. I was tired. I need to decide whether I really want to do ladder intervals tomorrow. I've never done ladder intervals before, and I don't want to skip them. Maybe I'll do them, but do them slower than prescribed.

Ladder Intervals. 2 miles easy, 1 min., 2 min., 3 min., 2 min., 1 min., 2 min., 3 min. @ 3K-10K pace with equal duration active recoveries, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 9:38.

Weather at 6:30 am: 50°F, 13% humidity, wind 20 mph sustained SSW.

I'm a creature of habit and I've been doing slight variations of the same route most days for the last while. So I decided to change it up a bit this morning and head out going a different direction and run a stretch that I haven't run in a while. Now I remember why I don't run this stretch very often. It has some significant uphills in the first 2 1/2 miles or so. My first two intervals ended up being uphill and into the wind.

I didn't feel particularly strong this morning, but I didn't feel sluggish either. I got feeling better as the run progressed. My paces on the intervals were: 8:45, 8:23, 8:13, 7:46 (I think I had the wind behind me at this point), 8:00, 8:21, 8:16.

I've really got to sew up the bottom of the arm band for my mp3 player. I don't normally run with the mp3 player, but I did today because it was too warm for my normal winter ear covering, but too cold and windy for nothing on my ears (my ears are very sensitive), so I used the headphones to give myself just a little ear covering. In any case, I started one of the intervals just after I crossed the street that the high school is on and that had a lot of traffic right then. As I started that interval, my mp3 player fell out the arm band. I had to stop and look for it for several minutes before I found it. I worried that I had dropped it in the cross walk, but I found it in the grass. It still works okay, but I did lose a tiny screw on the back of it.

In other news, my 6-year-old daughter made my bed for me this morning while I was out running. She also left a cute note on the bed.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:03.

Weather at 5:30 am: 25°F, 52% humidity, wind 6 SSW. The warm air we've had the past few days has blown out of here. At least wind went with it.

Not quite two years ago when I started running, I got a small notebook and started writing down my workouts. Even after I started this blog, I've continued to record each workout in the notebook. I normally fill 2-3 lines per workout. Well, yesterday I used up the last 2 lines in the notebook. I will now retire the notebook since I am keeping this blog, as well as a spreadsheet, and data from my Garmin. Looking back, my first entry was on May 9, 2007, and that day I ran/walked 2.84 miles in 41 minutes. I've come a long way since then.

I've got a crazy fartlek + progression long run tomorrow.

Fartlek + Progression Run. 6 miles easy, 5 miles of alternating between 90 sec. @ 10K pace and 90 sec. easy, 2 miles easy, 3 miles hard. Average pace: 9:38.

Weather: 27°F, 53% humidity, wind 4 mph gusting to 10 mph, SSW.

I ran on the Highline Canal trail again. I use it for long runs when I'm aiming for a specific pace or when I don't want too many hills. The trail was nice and flat today. The park service must smooth it periodically or something. I had to get a fairly early start because I had to be done in time to take my son to work.

I was feeling okay, not fabulous today, but I made it through the run. Average pace for the first 6 miles was 10:22. For the next 5 miles I ran the fast 90 sec. intervals at about 8:30, and the easy 90 sec. portions between 10:00 and 10:30, for an average pace over the 5 miles of 9:10. I ran the next 2 miles at 10:18, and the last 3 at 8:33. I really had to push on those last three, but it was supposed to be hard. I found myself slowing down and then focused on really swinging my elbows back, which helped me keep up the pace.

I've said this before recently, but once again, this is my highest mileage week ever. But I'll probably beat this week just slightly next week. Then it's a lower mileage week, including the half marathon.

Specific-Indurance Intervals. 2 miles easy, 4 x 1 mile @ 10K pace w/3-,min active recoveries, 2 miles easy.

First 2 miles were at 10:54 pace. Interval splits were 8:50, 8:28, 8:47, 8:27 (the first two were downhill and the second two were uphill). Last 2 miles were at 9:47 pace.

Weather: 44°F, 21% humidity, wind 12 SSW.

Darn that daylight savings time. I sure had a hard time dragging myself out of bed this morning. I let myself kind of oversleep because my kids don't have school today, so that eases up some of the morning rush. However, I still need to work today (will work from home since the kids are home). Tomorrow I've got to obey the "don't think, just go" mantra because I've got a 12 mile easy run and I do have to get kids off to school and myself to work.

It was relatively warm this morning, but is supposed to get colder as the week progresses. I was actually overdressed this morning. I stopped at the midway point for a restroom break and took off one of the two shirts I was wearing.

"Easy" run. Average pace: 10:04. Note that "easy" refers to the pace, not to the length of the run or to the conditions.

Weather at 5:30 am: 16°F, 85% humidity, wind 3 ENE. Snowing for the first hour, slick thereafter.

I manage to pull myself out of bed 5 minutes after my alarm went off. When I went out side there was just a trace of snow on the ground and it was snowing lightly. 20 minutes later it was snowing pretty hard. 20 minutes after that it had stopped snowing, but there was about an inch or so of snow on the ground by then. It was very cold. I was actually okay with the cold until the last couple of miles. My face was getting cold at that point, but I couldn't pull my neck thingie back up over my face because it was frozen solid. There was nothing to do at that point but keep running and get home. When I was almost home and was in my neighborhood, I encountered a couple of houses where people had shoveled their walks. I wished they hadn't. It was very slippery in those areas and I slipped pretty good and nearly fell on one of them. Running on the snow was much easier and not nearly as slick.

This was really a long, cold, dark, wet run. I was covered in ice when I got home. My daughter commented that there was ice in my eyebrows. Brrr. I've got to get warm now.

Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:38.

Weather: 17°F, 62% humidity, minimal wind, clear sky with a full moon, dry streets/sidewalks for the most part.

When I left the house to drive the kid to seminary, the moon was small and white and high in the sky. A little later, on my run, I watched it set in the west, at which point it appeared yellow and quite large. After that, I watched the sun rise in the east.

I ran the easy part of this run a little slower than I have been lately because I was tired from yesterday's run. But I've been reviewing what Hudson has to say about hill sprints lately, and so when I got to that point I really pushed it on the hill sprints, and then walked back down the hill for recovery between them. And once again, I encountered a bunch of middle-schoolers walking down my hill while I was doing the hill sprints. I guess that's what I get for running on that particular hill at that time in the morning. My paces for the hill sprints were 7:17, 7:36, 7:56, 7:44, 6:33, 7:27, 6:55, 6:35, 5:41, 6:24. Hudson says that the hill sprints should be at maximal effort but very short duration, so that's what I tried to do.

P.S. I'm tired of being cold.

Progression Run - 10 miles w/ last 15 min. moderate. Average pace: 9:53. Pace for furst 8.3 miles: 10:11. Pace for last 1.78 miles: 8:26.

5:45 am: 21°F, 60% humidity, wind not a factor.

About 5.5 miles into my run (so as as far away from home as I get on this route) I was running on a crude dirt trail across an open space along a main road. I had just gotten across the open space to the point where the dirt trail ends and the sidewalk picks up. My left toe caught on the edge of the sidewalk and I went down hard. I lay there face down on the sidewalk for a minute, then slowly rolled over and got myself up. I looked myself over, walked a few steps, and then started running and finished the run. I had taken my gloves off at that point, and I scraped up both hands, my left knee, and my chin. I drew blood in all those places, but only a little bit. Throughout the rest of the run I periodically had shooting pains in my right hand, and at one point I tried to put my gloves back on and really had trouble getting my right glove on. I can't lift anything with my right hand now. I think I might need an x-ray. I'll call my doctor in a little while. I banged my left knee too, but I think it is ok. I'm having a hard time typing. It's the ring finger and pinky on my right hand that are really hurting, so I'm typing normally with my left hand and hunting and pecking with the index finger of my right hand and making lots of corrections.

*Update*

My hand is feeling a little better. I can make a fist now, which I couldn't do before. I think I'll hold off for a while on calling the doctor and see what happens with my hand.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:15.

Weather at 6 am: 24°F, 54% humidity, no wind.

My right hand still hurts a little but is much improved from yesterday. My left knee is a little wonky, but it didn't hurt to run. I was very careful about watching my step whenever I switched between sidewalk and road.

It actually felt a little warmer today than it has the past few days. When the temperature is around the upper 20s, lower 30s, I always struggle to know whether to wear my hoody or not. I wore it Tuesday-Thursday this week and was glad for it. But it turned out to be too much today. But I did manage to take it off while running, which was a neat trick since I had my reflective vest on top of it.

I've got 17 miles scheduled tomorrow. I won't be able to do it early in the morning because I've got to get thing 3 to the solo/ensemble festival at 7:30 am and there's no way I can get 17 miles in before that. I'll have to run afterwards. I'm not used to running at any time other than first thing in the morning, so I'll see if that makes a difference.

Long run. Average pace: 9:42.

Weather: 44°F, 17% humidity, minimal wind. Blue skies, sunny, perfect weather for running.

I went with my son to the solo/ensemble festival this morning. We left after his performance because he had to go to his youth orchestra rehearsal and I went on my run. After his rehearsal, my husband took him back to the festival and picked up his adjudication sheet. He got a superior rating. He called me when I had about 3.5 miles left on my run and the news made me excited and I ran faster for a little while.

A friend ran the first 5 miles with me. She has been on a treadmill all winter and it was a bit of a challenge for her to run outside. She's going to run the first part of my long runs with me some more.

Once again, I am declaring my highest mileage week ever. I'll have a low mileage week next week because I'll be resting up for the Canyonlands Half Marathon on Saturday.

Threshold Run. Average pace: 9:15.

Weather at 6:00 am: 39°F, humidity 30%, wind 11 SSW, waning crescent moon.

I felt remarkably good today considering my long run last Saturday. I did walk about a mile yesterday afternoon. I guess that was my recovery. I will do easier runs the rest of this week to taper for the race on Saturday.

I was supposed to do 2 miles easy, 6 miles at marathon/half-marathon pace, 2 miles easy today. I wasn't sure what pace to target for the 6 miles, and I knew that the fist mile or two would be harder because they would be up hill, so I decided to shoot for about 9:30 for the first of the threshold miles and then speed up from there. My splits were: 10:36, 10:13, 9:23, 9:04, 9:13, 8:41, 8:14, 8:11, 9:25, 9:30. I had to consciously make myself slow down for the last two miles.

Does anyone have any advice for how I should pace myself in the half-marathon on Saturday? I figure I should do a couple of miles slow and easy, maybe with some strides, before the race starts to get warmed up, rather than using the first two miles of the race as a warm up. But then should I try to run the whole race at a steady pace, or should I divide it into sections and try to run negative splits, or what? Any suggestions are welcome.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:02.

Weather: 46°F, 23% humidity, wind 7 W.

We are really having marvelously warm weather this week. I didn't even wear gloves on my run this morning. It's the first time I haven't worn gloves for at least part of the run in a very long time.

I've got 10 miles on the schedule tomorrow, but I've got to be home in time to drive my son and a string bass to school at about 6:30 or 6:40. If I don't get up early enough and because I'm kind of tapering, I might knock it down to 8 miles. I'll just have to see what time I'm able to pull myself out of bed tomorrow. I should try to go to bed early tonight. That will be a challenge.

I was thinking this morning how much better shape I'm in now than when I ran a half marathon last August. When I ran that half marathon that was the furthest I had ever run. It was really a struggle. The only reason I got the time that I did was because I was running with a friend and she refused to leave my side the last couple of miles even though I kept telling her to go on ahead. She made me keep going.

Fartlek Run, easy w/2 min @ 10K pace every 5 minutes. Average pace: 9:10.

Weather: 40°F, 37% humidity, minimal wind.

I decided that sleep would do me more good than miles would this morning, so I didn't get up early enough to do 10 miles, which is what the planned workout was. I still got up pretty early because I had to be done in time to drive thing 1 and a string bass to school, but not freakishly early.

My paces on the 2 min fast parts were 8:20, 8:06, 8:20, 7:57, 8:15, 7:53, 7:48, 8:00, 7:49, 8:03, 7:52, 8:07. I was shooting for around 8:00, so I was fairly close, give or take a little bit.

I'm feeling pretty good for the race on Saturday. Today was my last hard workout. I'm supposed to rest tomorrow and then do 4 miles easy on Friday. I'm really looking forward to this race.

In other news, I still have just a little bit of pain in my right hand since my fall last week. It's not debilitating, but it just doesn't seem to be going completely away.

Rest day. I still had to get up early so that I could take Thing 2 to seminary at 6:00, but when I got home I went back to bed until 7:30. Ah, the bliss. In imitation of Bonnie's posting from yesterday, and because I don't have a run to write about this morning, I'm going to make a list.

Things I love about running in Colorado (at least my part of Colorado):

1. Lots of trails, both paved and dirt.
2. Ample, well-maintaned sidewalks with working street lights.
3. Three words: hills, hills, and hills.
4. Lots of other runners.
5. Early sunrise (at least compared to more western parts of the time zone).
6. Dry weather.
7. High altitude.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:58.

Weather: 44°F, 49% humidity, minimal wind.

I had a nice, pleasant, easy run this morning. I felt strong and prepared for tomorrow's race. But I've been crazy busy since then, trying to help Thing 3 get his homework done, which he should have done before now but didn't manage to do, giving Thing 1 a ride to school because he overslept, getting Thing 4 to the school bus in the nick of time, and going to the grocery store to get milk because we were out. I still need to get myself showered/dressed and finish packing. Also, I want to run a few errands before leaving for Moab. Dang this is a busy morning. It will be nice to get on the road to Moab in a little while and be able to relax.

Official results are in.

Clock time - 1:52:03

Chip time - 1:49:34 (it took me a long time to get to the start line)

Overall place - 719/3284

Gender place - 228/1920

Division place - 43/342

Pace: 8:33

I am wasted right now. Driving for 6 hours the day before the race, and then driving for 3.5 hours shortly after the race is not a very good idea.

I drove by myself to Moab on Friday and went to the race expo. I met up with Lori, which was really great. We had a nice talk while I ate dinner. She had already eaten but was kind enough to come sit with me so I wouldn't be total dork sitting there all by myself.

My husband and three youngest kids drove separately from me and left after school was out. They got there about 10:30 Friday night.

My legs were feeling kind of yucky from the drive to Moab and then I didn't sleep well because of being in an unfamiliar bed and anxiety about the race. I woke up with a headache. But things went fairly well once I got to the race. I rode the bus up to the start, and it was cold, but really not too bad. I've been to much colder races. They had hot chocolate, which I enjoyed. I think I burnt my tongue a little. You were supposed to take your sweats off and load your sweat bag on to a truck a half hour before the start of the race. I tossed my sweat bag on the truck about 40 minutes before the race and then ran the opposite direction from the start line for a 2 mile warmup. It much preferred spending that time running and getting warm rather than standing around in my shorts at the start line being cold. And then I felt like luck was on my side (I thought of felix felicis, or however it's spelled, from Harry Potter) when I stopped my warm up run 15 minutes before the start and was actually able to get to a port-a-potty before the race started. It got really hot once the race started. It was a very warm day. I was wearing a singlet and shorts and I was dripping sweat by the time I was done.

I tried to run around 9:30 pace or just under for the first two miles, on Bonnie's advice, but I was worried about making up that time later on if I wanted to do an 8:15 average pace in order to get the 1:48 that Bonnie predicted. I guess I took 1:48 on as a challenge. After the first 2 miles I tried to speed up and keep increasing my speed in small increments for the rest of the race. I didn't quite get the 1:48 that I wanted, but I was close. My splits, according to my Garmin, were: 9:24, 9:17, 8:57, 8:21, 8:21, 8:03, 8:08, 7:57, 8:00, 8:03, 8:08, 7:50, 7:44, and 7:48 for the last bit. Of course, my Garmin says I ran 13.18, not 13.1, so the average pace from the Garmin is a little different than the official results say. The Garmin says my average pace was 8:18, while the official results say 8:33.

People were passing me the first few miles, but then I started passing people for the rest of the race. I tried to really pore it on the last couple of miles and it nearly killed me. I really had to dig down deep to keep the pace up at the end. When I got to where I could see the finish line and people were lining the sides of the course, I was wondering how in the world I was going to get to that finish line. I was so glad when I finally did.

If I had worn my fuel belt and had drunk my own water/gatorade while running, instead of walking through 3 or 4 of the aid stations, like I did, I might have gotten that 1:48. Oh well.

I talked to a guy from the blog named Mark before the race. I was wearing a FRB singlet and so he stopped and talked to me. I'm not sure what his blog name is, so Mark, if you see this, please comment.

In Utah on the Provo River Trail with Sasha and others. This is not the workout I would have done if I had been on my own today. I guess I would call this a tempo run. Average pace: 8:14.

I neglected to turn my Garmin on until we actually started running and it took a quarter of a mile to find satellites, so my mile splits were offset from where they should have been. I don't have the pace for the first 1/4 of a mile accounted for in my average, but it was close to the average, so no big deal.

Sasha wanted to see what I could do, so we started out around 8:15. He and the others were kind enough to stay with me for the whole 8 miles (so I wouldn't get lost) and push me to a faster pace than I'm used to, but I was able to be conversational until the very end when Sasha had me run faster for a half mile. Some of them went out for more miles after I was done.

Splits were 8:20, 7:54, 8:03, 8:24, 8:19, 8:25, 8:51, 8:39 (this wasn't a whole mile), a half mile at 6:40, with the last 100 yards all out. (My splits are slightly different from what anyone else who was running would have gotten because of the .25 offset on my laps.)

I got some good advice from Sasha about training pace. I think maybe my biggest weakness right now is the confidence to run faster than I have been. A lesson I learned at the race on Saturday is that I need to have the confidence to line up closer to the front. It took me 2 1/2 minutes to get to the start line on Saturday. And now today I heard from Sasha that he thinks I can run a marathon faster than I thought that I could.

6 miles with Josse on the Provo River Trail, average pace 8:45, followed by the same 6 miles again by myself, average pace 9:01.

Weather: 34°F, 80% humidity, no significant wind.

I had a good time running with Josse this morning. It was fun to talk with her and get to know her a little bit. I'm having a challenge this week running with people who are faster than me. It's a good thing for me to do since I normally run by myself and don't have any one to push me.

On the Provo River Trail with Josse and her dog. Average pace: 8:38.

Weather: 35° F, 93% humidity, light mist.

This wasn't really an easy run, but not a really hard run either. I guess I would call it moderate. It's a little hard for me to start out at that speed, but I felt better after the first couple of miles. I am a little tired from the increased intensity of my runs so far this week.

Splits were 8:53, 8:17, 8:47, 8:32, 8:43.

I'm having a good time this week meeting fellow bloggers.

Easy/moderate run. Average pace: 8:50.

Weather: 32°F, 78% humidity, wind 20 NNW, light snow.

I ran around Holladay with jun (Craig). We had a nice visit about a variety of topics. He was kind enough to slow down a bit for me.

This makes four days in a row of running 9:00 pace or faster. I think I'm going to need to slow down for at least part of my long run tomorrow. And I wonder what I'm going to do when I'm home next week. Maybe it's easier for me here because it's lower elevation and not as hilly.

It looks like we've got big snow in Denver today and I'm missing it. There's a little snow here in Salt Lake, but not too much.

Long tempo run. Average pace 8:07.

Weather: 19°F (I think maybe it was warmer than that by the end), 73% humidity, no significant wind.

I'm dead. Sasha killed me and then he killed me again. We did a mile and a half warm-up at about 9:00 pace, then he wanted me to do an 8-mile tempo at 8:00 pace. I managed to hit just under 8:00 pace, but I was pretty beat by the end. He let me cool down, again around 9:00 pace for a mile and a half, and then I had to run fast the rest of the way, because the virtual 8:00 pace girl was chasing us with a knife. Sasha encouraged me to relax and be like a car that was low on gas and was trying to make it to the gas station. Later, he told me that the stop sign was a magnet and was pulling me, and then it was a corner, or a car, or different things until we finally got back to his house. At various times during the run he would be ahead of me a little ways and put his hand down and I was supposed to run up to him and give him 5. Some of the times it took me a while to get to him, but I eventually did it. Other times he would ask me to pick up the cadence, particularly when going up small hills. From my performance in these exercises he concluded that my leg strength is good and it's my aerobic conditioning that is limiting me. He says I just need to keep running and my aerobic conditioning will improve.

Mary Ann, Jeff, and Matt were with us, though they each peeled off at different points. Thanks to everyone for carrying my hoody and fuel belt that I was foolish enough to bring with me.

After the run I got to go hang out at Sasha's house a little bit, meet his kids, and have a banana and some really yummy raw coconut pie that Sarah made last night. I got to hold their baby. He's a really cute, smiley guy.

I didn't hit my lap button when we started the tempo, and we started it after 1.5 miles, so the mile splits recorded by my Garmin are offset by a half mile from what they should be. In any case, here they are: 8:56, 8:32, 7:54, 7:53, 7:47, 7:51, 7:42, 7:41, 7:47, 8:42, 8:58, 8:02, 8:01, 8:09, (for the last 0.64) 7:54.

I mentioned the running camp idea to Sasha.

Thus ends my fastrunning week. I am beat. I plan to do a really easy, short recovery run tomorrow morning before getting in the car to drive back to Colorado.

One more funny thing. When I got back to my inlaws' house after the run, my mother-in-law asked if I walked with those people again. I just told her that it wasn't walking. She really doesn't understand what I'm doing. Nobody in my family does. That's why I need the blog.

**Update**

Sasha and his brain kept better track of what I did than my Garmin did. The following is copied and modified slightly from Sasha's blog: I ran a mile in 7:57 and then picked it up to around 7:40-7:45 range. I finished 8 miles in 1:02:13, average of 7:46.6. Then I jogged a mile in 9:12 and a little more at about 9:00 pace. As soon as the 8:00 girl caught us, Sasha had me go after her and PR in the half. I ended up running 1:45:20 for the half, a 4 minute PR on a slower course beating my Moab time 6 days ago.

Recovery run. Average pace: 9:41.

Weather: 26°F, 74% humidity, no wind.

I ran by myself for the first time this week. It was nice to relax for a change. I didn't really monitor my pace with my watch. I just ran by feel. Now it's time to drive back home. I hope the recent storm is gone and that the roads are clear.

**Update**

I'm home. Roads were dry but there was really heavy stop-and-go traffic for about 40 miles on I-70 just east of the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnels. I'm glad to be off the road.

Fartlek run - 3 miles easy, 8 x 3 min. @ half-marathon pace/2 min. easy, 3 miles easy. Average pace: 8:52.

Weather: 27 °F, 89% humidity, wind 8-18 mph ENE, light snow. I'm glad I ran when I did. It started getting pretty nasty as I was finishing my run and then the snow got a lot heavier after I was done. All I can see outside my window right now is white.

I think that running here at higher elevation and lots of hills is harder than running the Provo River Trail in Utah. Still, I tried to stick fairly closely to the new paces I discovered last week. My average pace for the 3 miles easy at the beginning was 9:12, and for the 3 miles easy at the end was 9:09. I was targeting 8:00 pace for the 3 min. @ half-marathon pace intervals. My pace on them was: 7:44, 7:56, 8:10, 8:13, 7:56, 7:54, 7:36, 7:39.

I'm hoping that I can get used to a faster pace over the next few weeks so that I can run the Ogden marathon at a good pace.

Easy run + 4 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:41.

Weather: 27°F, 36% humidity, wind 10 mph WNW.

I took it a little slower today, especially for the first few miles, which were generally uphill. I sped up for the second half, which was generally downhill. Splits were 9:51, 10:01, 9:53, 9:55, 9:33, 9:32, 9:18, 8:58. Pace for the hill sprints was 7:37, 6:56, 7:04, 6:05 (I really tried to go fast on the last one).

I fell again at the same spot where I fell last time, but it wasn't nearly as bad of a fall this time. I kind of rolled to my right as I fell and just bounced right up and kept running. My right knee is a little scraped and will probably be bruised, but it's no big deal. No injuries other than that. I've got to quit daydreaming and pay attention when ever I'm running in that place. It's where a dirt trail ends and a sidewalk starts. I keep catching my toe on the edge of the sidewalk.

Today is my husband's birthday. Now he's old like me.

Easy/moderate run. Average pace: 9:02.

Weather: 32°F, 53% humidity, wind 8 mph S.

I think I got my run in during the best part of the day. The skies were partly cloudy and I had some sun since I got out kind of late and was out for a long time. Now it's quite overcast and a storm is coming in.

I felt pretty good, especially for the first half of the run, and so I mostly ran easy but sometimes pushed the pace just a little bit, particularly when going up hill. By the end, the recurring blister on my right foot was killing me. I've been putting Vaseline on my blister spots before I run, but it didn't help today. I bought some new shoes (Brooks Adrenaline) yesterday and I'm wearing them at work today to break them in. I'll run in them tomorrow. I hope they'll be better for my feet and won't aggravate the blister spots.

I wanted to post a picture of the elevation profile from my run, but I can't because of the quirks of my work computer (security stuff). I may try to do it when I get home tonight.

I had a nice run, but the day has gone downhill since then.

**Update**

I just looked out the window and we're having horizontal weather. I'm dreading walking out to my car (which is parked in the north 40) when I leave here.

Fartlek run - easy w/6 x 30 sec. at 3K-5K pace. Average pace: 9:16.

Weather: 19°F, 70% humidity, wind 7.5 S.

The horizontal weather yesterday evening only amounted to about an inch of snow that didn't really stick to the sidewalks much. The roads and sidewalks in my neighborhood were mostly clear. But when I got out onto the main roads, I discovered that the snow plows must have come by during the storm last evening and deposited a layer of chunky ice on the shoulder of the road and the sidewalks. I estimate that about 40% of my run was on dry surfaces, and the other 60% was on icy stuff.

I did a mile to warm up and then started the 30-second speed intervals. I ran easy approximately 2 minutes between intervals. I had a little longer recovery before the last 2 intervals because I was on icy sidewalks at that point and I waited until I got to a side street so I could switch to the road before starting the interval (the sidewalk is too far from the road to just step down at other times). Even with going on the road, the shoulder was pretty icy and I had to get very close to the outside line of the lane on those last 2 intervals in order to find dry pavement.

We're supposed to get into the 50s today, so the ice that I encountered this morning should melt. The next storm is supposed to come Friday night/Saturday morning and they're saying that it could be a big one. I'm thinking that maybe I'll try to do my 18 miler tomorrow morning and just come in late to work and then work on Saturday morning while it's snowing to make it up.

I'll push last night's elevation preblogging down and put today's real entry at the top.

Hard long run. Average pace: 8:48.

Weather: 41°F, 52% humidity, wind 8 SW. The wind wasn't much of a factor except the last few miles when I was running into it.

The workout I was supposed to do according to my Hudson training plan was 2 miles easy, 14 miles @ marathon pace + 10-20 sec/mile, 2 miles easy. Marathon pace + 10-20 sec/mile would be about 8:50 or 9:00. Sasha wants me to practice going as long I can at 8:15 pace so that I can do that in the marathon and get ahead of my target pace and then still get the time I want with a positive split. I decided to try Sasha's plan. Last week I ran 8 miles at just under 8:00 pace with him, so I thought that today I could do 10 miles at closer to 8:15 pace. So I did 2 miles easy, 10 miles trying to get to 8:15 pace, 2 miles easy, 2 miles trying to get to 8:15 pace, and 2 miles easy. My splits were 9:57, 9:36, 8:32, 8:18, 8:19, 8:23, 8:19, 8:20, 8:18, 8:21, 8:15 (finally hit it), 8:08 (anxious to get to the easy part), 9:37, 9:45, 8:22, 8:27, 9:55, 9:34.

I put vaseline on my blisters, a bandaid on one of them, and wore my thickest socks. The bandaid didn't stay in place, probably because of the vaseline. My feet were killing me for the last several miles. Since I've finally figured out how to post pictures, I will now gross you out with a picture of my blisters. Don't laugh at the toe nail polish. I NEVER polish my nails, but this is left over from the pedicure I got on my birthday last week.

I think my feet are just hating the Sauconys. I would have worn the Brooks, but I think I need to do a few short runs in them before I do a long run. I'll wear them for my long run next week for sure. Maybe that will help.

On the up side, I'm happy to have the weekend in front of me and my long run out of the way. This is two weeks in a row doing my long run on Friday. I might do it again next week because I need to have a choir practice Saturday morning to get ready for the Easter program. I'll have to take a day off from work in order to do it next Friday because I'll have to wait until the kids are at school to run. I could go early today because my husband is on spring break and could get the kids off to school today. I day off from work to do a long run kind of sounds like fun anyway.

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Preblogging to show you the elevation profile of my 12-mile run from Wednesday. This is a combination of two 6-mile routes that I run regularly.

Recovery run. Average pace: 10:06.

Weather: 26°F, 93% humidity, wind 25 mph N, light snow with no accumulation except a light dusting on grassy areas.

This is the snow storm that wasn't. For the past several days the local news has been talking like a foot of snow was guaranteed. The snow was supposed to start between 11:00 last night and midnight. I woke up a couple of times during the night and looked out the window to see that there was no snow. When I got up about 7:30 this morning, the snow had just started. It's just an off and on very light snow. Still it is cold and windy and was unpleasant to run in, particularly when heading north. I ran south to begin, and then did an east-west zig zaggy thing to make my way back north and mnimize the amount of due north running I needed to do in order to get home. I'm glad that I did my long run yesterday because it was one thing to do a 5 mile easy run in the cold and wind today. It would have been quite another thing to do an 18 mile hard run in that weather.

I stopped and picked up a pair of Yaktrax last night on my way home from work. I didn't need them this morning. I guess I'll just hang on to them and maybe I'll need them some day, hopefully not until next winter.

All sorts of things were cancelled proactively in anticipation of the storm. For example, our school district decided yesterday to cancel all Saturday activities today. That wouldn't be a big deal, except all of the high schools were supposed to take the ACT today and our high school was supposed to have a performance of their musical tonight. With the way this storm has turned out, there was really no reason to cancel these things. It's unpleasant outside, but not that bad.

Easy run with 10 x 30 sec. @ 3K-10K pace. Average pace: 9:20.

Weather: 17°F, 69% humidity, minimal wind from the SE.

My head is a little stuffy and throat is a little sore, but I got outside and did some deep breathing of the cold air anyway. I actually think that doing that helps to keep my lungs and sinuses clear. It certainly empties my nose out.

My legs were a little tired when I started, but then I got going fairly well. I probably took the fast sections a little faster than I should have. My paces on the 10-30 sec. fast bits were: 6:45, 6:55, 7:01, 7:26, 7:07, 7:16, 7:14, 7:07, 7:05, 7:02. I really didn't think I was going quite that fast when I was doing them. I did on average 4 minutes of easy running between fast intervals (with nearly 3 miles at the beginning and about 2.5 miles at the end, all easy).

I'm trying to decide whether I should register for the Bolder Boulder this year, and if so whether I should get in a qualifying wave. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Bolder Boulder, it is a VERY POPULAR 10K race that is held in Bolder, CO every Memorial Day. I ran it for the first time last year. I would like to do it again, but my problem is that it is 9 days after my marathon. If you think you can run the race faster than 62 minutes, you can register for a qualifying wave, which requires that you show proof from a previous race of your ability to run the time you predict. Based on my recent half marathon performance, I could qualify for about a 49 minute time. If you're slower than 62 minutes, they have open waves that don't require qualification. I don't know whether I should try to "race" a 10K 9 days after my marathon, run a 10K as an easy pace 9 days after my marathon, or give up the whole idea and skip it this year. Because this race is so huge, I can't really wait until after my marathon to decide. Registration fills up before then.