Same Time, Same Channel

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.