Objective: marathon pace long run. 2 miles easy, 15 miles @ MP + 10 sec., 3 miles easy. Average pace: 8:29.
Weather: 72°F, no wind. It occured to me that I had another option besides running in the snow and running on a treadmill: an indoor track. I went to a rec center that has an indoor track with 12 laps on the track equaling 1 mile. I used my Garmin as a stop watch and hit the lap button every 12 laps so that I could get mile times. I counted the track laps on my fingers, so I just had to count to 12 twenty times instead of trying to count to 240. There were always at least a couple of other walkers or runners on the track. At one point a big group showed up and they kind of split up into smaller grouns, but I still had to ask them to move one time when they were walking 4-abreast. They stayed out of my way after that. I was faster than most of the other people on the track, but there was one girl who kept blazing past me, but she didn't run for nearly as long as I did. And judging from what her t-shirt said, she's a sophomore in high school. It was a big change for me to run on a completely flat surface.
I normally take sport beans on my long runs, but I neglected to take anything like that with me today, so I just had water from the drinking fountain that I passed 240 times and stopped at occasionally. In case anyone is interested, my split times were 9:31, 9:18, 8:12, 8:29, 8:23, 8:19, 8:17, 8:17, 8:19, 8:11, 8:12, 8:04, 8:20, 8:23, 8:15, 8:14, 8:09, 8:24 (this one was supposed to be easy; I either neglected to slow down much or else I miscounted and only went around the track 11 times, I'm really not sure which), 9:08, 9:03. Here are some pictures of why I decided to run inside today, first a picture taken from my front door and then a picture taken from my deck: 
It has changed to rain now and the roads are clear but just wet. The sidewalks are covered with the slush and muck that the snowplows have kicked up. The shoulders of the road are like rivers. I trust that things will be cleared up by Monday, which is the next time I'm scheduled to run.
| 