Same Time, Same Channel

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.