I only run on days that end in a "y."

Cold, dark and foggy - great day for a run.  Ran miles between 8:10 - 8:00 pace with 9 x 100m strides around 5-10k pace with 100m or so easy pace in between.  I had to guestimate 100m as I did not what to fiddle with my watch - looking back I did a fairly good job estimating. 

Dark and cold - I looked at the temp before I went out and it read 38 degrees.  I thought no big deal - I will run in a singlet in the 40's.  So I threw on a short sleve base layer and a long sleeve base layer on top of that with shorts.  Well, I did not account for a 19 degree wind chill!  I had gloves and a ear warmer head band but I was on the cusp of not being dressed warm enough.  After mile 2 it was better as I warmed up a bit, but still cold when the wind would get me.

Took the hilly course near the house - lots of hills - what joy!

Ran by feel and did not pay too much attention to my watch. All in all not a bad effort for the day.  9:10, 8:20, 7:58, 7:46, 8:05, 7:43, 7:50, 7:57, 8:31, 8:05, 7:58, 7:49, 7:41.

Lunchtime:  Strength workout at the gym. 3 sets of 10 Armstrong step-ups with 30lb dumbbells, 2 x 25 Bulgarian squats, core work.

Brisk morning - wasn't as cold as was predicted.  8 miles at recovery pace.  Overall 9:04 pace.

Nice cold morning - low 30's.  Met the group at Barton Springs pool and ran 2 miles warm-up followed by 8 x 1000m intervals with about 600m active recovery between each one.  Followed by 1.7 miles cool down.  Started intervals slow and finished fast. Counting active recovery distance into "easy miles" total.

1. 4:08 (6:39 pace)

2. 3:59 (6:24 pace)

3. 3:53 (6:14 pace)

4. 3:52 (6:13 pace)

5. 3:48 (6:06 pace)

6. 3:46 (6:04 pace)

7. 3:45 (6:02 pace)

8. 3:32 (5:41 pace)

This is the funniest thing I have seen about running.  I can't stop laughing! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw5MHsO-JI8

6 recovery miles on the indoor track.  Somewhere around 9 minute miles.

Cold, rainy, did I mention cold?  We ran the south portion of the Austin course.  The first 6 miles is a loop.  I had to stop at my car to change into my hoodie - at this point my long sleeve was soaked and I was cold.  Fortunately, the rain let up on the back end of our run.  My legs were complaining parts of the way - it has been a hard last 7 days.  Looking forward to a recovery week.  Also, the plan was to run 16 but I did a bit of extra credit before meeting up with the others so I ended up with 17.5 for the day.