Same Time, Same Channel

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.