Per Aspera Ad Astra

I figured I'll just start counting Sun-Sat like everybody else, so I have to log yesterday's run twice.  Note that I did not do back to back 18s.

14 miles in 1:31:31 (6:32s).  A little slower than marathon pace, but most of the run was faster than the average (more like 6:20s) with about 5 of the miles at a little over 7:00 due to unplowed snow on some back roads.  Probably harder than I should've gone the day after an 18 at any pace, but whatever, it wasn't that bad.  Last 3 were more like 6:05-6:10 pace.  Loop was standard Maht/Still route with a Jamaca/Keats loop thrown in, then up to Kimbro (Womanbro loop rather than Manbro, as named by my high school team back in the day, on Jeffrey, parallel to Gateway Trail, since the trail was even snowier than the road), then Jamaca back to normal route, with a slightly lengthened finish to get up to a 14 mile total.  Pretty cold out (12 degrees straight, windchill of exactly 0), but I felt OK with hot chillies, shorts, a l/s cotton shirt, and my American River 50 jacket (standard lately) with light hat/neckwarmer/gloves.

14, pretty easy, 1:40:xx.  Maht/Still typical route (I really love this route it seems), a couple minutes past Manning Ave, and back.  Once again cold but not brutal (windchill of -3, straight temp of 6), although my eyelids kept freezing shut every mile or so. Hah.   This is almost certainly the farthest I've ever gone on Christmas.

1:18, pretty sore.  kathryn abbot loop, oh nature loop, up to jamaca, back a bit on the old mile repeat dirt roaf, through old mahtomedi neighborhoods a bit, north on mahtomedi ave, extended park/summit loop, back normal way with extra wildridge loop.  first two loops in crusty and slick snow were annoying for my legs.

20 miles with the last 3.1 at MP (6:15s over some moderate hills), total time of 2:21:24 (71:50 out, 69:34 back), stopped at a small convenience store for about a minute for a glass of water at 11.x miles).  To Wisconsin and back via the standard route.  Bill Mennell ran with me from like 3.3 to 16.7 or so, good run for him, even if not blazingly fast.  My legs were not exceedingly happy today after 5 days of 14, 18, 14, 11, 20, all in singles, but I didn't really expect them to be.  The pace was a little faster than I expected to do today and I ran it without looking at my watch much and with intention for the pace to feel easy.  I guess it's good that 20 miles of 7:04s still feels easy on pretty beat up legs.

12 miles, 1:25. Typical 89/10th N/Main/89 loop, but through in an extra mile out into Centerville and back. Got back from MN at 7:00, got to my apartment at 7:30, unpacked and cleaned, and finally got out the door at 9:45 PM, so this was a late run. Sidewalks were quite icy / snowy in places where they hadn't been plowed, but totally fine in others, so it was kind of a back and forth between sidewalk and road the entire time.  Somewhat annoying, but at least it felt pretty darn nice out at 23 degrees, especially compared to the sub-zero windchills I'd been running in back in MN.  Legs were OK, really not all that great (wouldn't have been up for a hard effort), but better than I expected.

Out and back on Center and Orchard/400.  Today was one of those rare days where I just didn't want to be running.  I was excited to run beforehand, but it just felt like a bit of a chore the whole time.  Pace was pretty slow (1:27 for 12), which may have contributed, as slow running is less fun.  In any case, this still got me over 100 for the week, which while rather arbitrary, is a nice mental milestone.