Same Time, Same Channel

Snow day. Church is canceled. I figure we've got about 6 inches at this point and it's still coming down, but relatively slowly. We had to drive Thing 1 to work early this morning and we've got to pick him up in about an hour. Other than that, there's nothing to do but stay in the house and eat. Maybe I'll shovel snow at some point.

One hour on the treadmill. It was too icy to run outside. I hope the snow and ice melt enough today for me to run outside tomorrow.

I set the treadmill at 1% grade. I measured my heart beat using the sensors on the treadmill right before the end of each mile. I'm listing heart rates in parantheses following the paces here. I started slowly and ran a mile at 10:55 pace (132), then another mile at 10:00 pace (144). Then I went up to 9:31 pace (145) for a mile and increased the pace by .1 mph for each mile thereafter, creating subsequent splits of 9:23 (148), 9:14 (148), and 9:05 (153). I still had a couple of minutes left in my hour after those 6 miles, so I upped the pace to 8:34 (154) for the remaining .22 miles. Average pace was 9:39.

It would take too long for me to drive to work (where the treadmill is) and back early in the morning, especially since I had to drive to seminary today. So in order to eliminate an extra round trip to the office, I got up early (but not as early as I should have - see below) and worked for a while in the morning and then came in to work after all the kids had gone to school and ran on the treadmill then.

As I drove up to my office this morning, I realized that I had neglected to bring a towel. I could have driven back home to get one, but it would have taken me about a half an hour to get there and back. There's a new Target close to my office and I figured we could use some new towels anyway, so I went to Target and bought a towel. That little detour probably took me about 15 minutes.

Now for an explanation of why I did not get up as early as I should have. 1) I was up until midnight reading a book. I'm often like this when I read a book. I do nothing but read until I finish the book. The book was Catching Fire, the second book in the The Hunger Games series. 2) My daughter came and climbed into bed with me around 4 am because she had had a bad dream. I finally sent her back to her own room at about 5 am. The good news is that the third book in the The Hunger Games series hasn't been published yet, so I can maybe go to bed on time tonight instead of staying up to read.

Easy eight + shred level 2.

5:24 am, 34° F, 49% humidity, wind 9 SSE.

I decided to venture out wearing the shoes with the most tread. This had the added benefit of knocking the mud from last Saturday's race off of the shoes. I did the County Line Road loop. The portion along County Line Road made me nervous because I had to run closer to traffic than I am comfortable doing on account of the frozen slop that has been deposited by the snow plows. I was going against traffic, there were two lanes each direction, and not much traffic at that time in the morning. Most cars went into the other lane to avoid me, but a couple didn't, which surprised me because I was easily visible with my headlamp and reflective vest. Even more surprising was a guy who was on foot who nearly ran into me. He was walking toward me on the sidewalk and I was on the road. Just as we crossed paths, he decided to step down from the sidewalk into the road. I guess the ice on the sidewalk got too bad at that point. He did not have a light or anything reflective and I didn't see him until he was pretty close to me, but apparently he didn't see me at all. He was wearing a hoody and was hunched down peering at the ground and nearly walked right into me. I said, "excuse me," and he acted really surprised that I was there.

Once I turned the corner onto Quebec Street and got back into Highlands Ranch, I had mostly plowed sidewalks with just some icy spots from yesterday's snow melt.

As I was waiting to turn the corner from Quebec onto University, I saw the old guy with the stiff arm again. He was turning the same way I was going, but I was on the other side of the street and was waiting for a light, so he got a good head start on me. I caught up with him after a while, and then he caught up with me because we both had to wait for a light near the high school. I spoke with him very briefly. He didn't seem very anxious to talk. He said he was running 6 miles and I'm pretty sure of the route he takes given the various places I have seen him. He probably lives in the retirement community that's adjacent to my back yard. I'm impressed that he gets out there and runs consistently.

AP: 9:18. Splits: 9:41, 9:06, 9:18, 9:49, 9:51, 9:04, 8:44, 8:54.

Easy Eight + Level 2 Shred.

4:56 am, 34° F, 51% humidity, wind 9 SE.

Almost the same weather as yesterday, almost the same distance, almost the same pace, slightly different route, somewhat less ice.

AP: 9:22. Splits: 9:50, 9:42, 9:41, 9:34, 9:11, 9:08, 9:07, 8:51.

Easy Eight Super-Sized + Level 2 Shred.

5:31 am, 34° F, 48% humidity, winds calm.

This was the third day in the row of exactly the same temperature and similar humidity during my run. The only difference was I didn't have the wind today that I had the last two days.

I did the Broadway loop, which takes me almost to my office, but I did it in the opposite direction that I normally do. So instead of starting with rolling hills with mostly downhill and finishing with a long, gradual uphill, I started (after the first mile or so) with a long, gradual downhill, and finished with rolling hills with mostly uphill. I think I like it better this way. While the rolling hills that go mostly uphill are steeper and probably have more total uphill than the long gradual uphill, I prefer the rolling hills because I at least get a little relief periodically.

I have trouble getting myself up and out the door as early as I ought to on days that I don't have to drive to seminary. So I'm a little behind schedule now because of my late start. But I have a little cushion because I'm working from home so that I can go to a little Thanksgiving lunch with my daughter at the elementary school.

AP: 9:29. Splits: 10:14, 9:48, 9:35, 9:25, 9:32, 9:33, 9:09, 8:58, and 0.64 miles @ 8:58 pace.

Easy run.

5:12 am, 34° (for the 4th day in a row), 51% humidity, wind 6 SSE.

I guess I've really worn myself out this week. I was slow this morning. I hope my taking it slow and easy today gets me rested up enough for tomorrow. I'm doing a virtual mile race with Tracy tomorrow morning.

AP: 10:01. Splits: 10:26, 10:07, 10:08, 10:04, 9:59, 9:25.

Virtual Mile Race Time - 6:35.

6:03 am, 45°F, 25% humidity, wind 9 SSE.

I took a very out-of-the-way route to the track and ran about a lap and a half on the track for warmup before I started the timed mile. I ended up doing 3 miles of warm up with a couple of strides thrown in. The timed mile was tough. I think I did the first lap in about 1:31, but then I slowed down a bit on each subsequent lap. I did manage to push it just a little bit the last 20 yards or so. After I finished the timed mile, I walked for a half a lap, and then took a two mile route back home for a total of 6 miles.

AP: 9:24. Splits: 10:05, 9:39, 9:55, 6:35, 10:34, 9:34.

7:36 am, 46°, 12% humidity, wind 9 SW with some stronger gusts.

After I got home from the timed mile run, I put on dry running clothes, grabbed a banana and drove to the Highline Canal Trail to run with Team Michelle. The trail was in lousy shape today. I guess it had been muddy during the week and so there were foot prints, paw prints, and bicycle tire tracks frozen into the dirt. It was very bumpy. Also, there were several big stretches that were covered in icy snow. I had worn racing flats for my early morning track session, but switched to the trail shoes for this run and I was glad. I had a little easier time on the icy stretches than the Michelles did on account of my trail shoes. I actually felt colder on this second run than I did on the first run. I was tired. It was kind of a tough run. Michelle #1 picked up the pace a little bit on the last stretch, but I didn't have it in me at that point.

AP: 9:47. Splits: 9:46, 9:45, 9:37, 9:50, 10:01, 9:51, 9:44, 9:41.