Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't

Ten degrees on this 10th of January, I guess I should have ran 10 miles!  Oh well, 6 will have to do.  Tom and I were saying that we need to write the temps in our reports so next fall when it starts getting to 40 and we think we are cold we can look back and see that we really aren't cold then.  : )

Had to go up and down Center Street because most of the roads aren't too great.  Ran with Kay and Carolyn for a bit and said hi to Bob and 2 others, (I think one was Beth.).  Nice to see other runners out and about in the chilly morning. 

Lots of people leave for work around 6:30 in the morning.  The traffic on 11th east is crazy! 

The snow was lightly falling when the wind was at our backs.  It was the pretty, sparkley kind of snow.  But when we turned to go up hill into the wind the snow pricked our eyes and froze our cheeks. 

As always, very happy to have the run done for the day. 

Wow, yesterday was the 10th and it was 10 degrees when I went out.  Today is the 11th and it was 11 degrees.  With this trend does that mean we could actually have 31 degrees on the 31st of Jan?  That would feel tropical!  : )  But then would we get 1 degree on Feb. 1st and start all over again?  I just know that I will be happy to get this bitter cold stuff out of here. 

Anyway, Tom and I waited until 11:30ish because this morning's temp was predicted for 0 degrees.  The forecast says it is suppose to get to 24 today, but I'm not quite belieiving it will do it.

Today's speed work called for cut down, fast hard pace.  1 mile, 3/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 1/4 mile with 1/4 mile recovery between each one.  Warmed up for 1.5 miles.  Then did the best I could in this darn cold stuff.

1 mile: 7:23

3/4 mile: 7:23

1/2 mile: 7:22

1/4 mile: 6:50

Enjoyable recovery home while Tom went off to do his weekly hill workout.

This workout made me remember that my very first goal with all of this preparation for the 5K in a week and a half is to break 24.  There has been some speculation by me and others of the possibility of breaking 23.  I do not want to put that pressure on myself. I will be happy with anything under 24....the more under, the more happy, but happy just the same.  I don't want to set myself up for disappointment. 

With the temp trend of the past few days I was expecting it to be 12 degrees for our run this morning.  Pleasant surprise.....15 degrees and reaching up to 17 before the run was over!  Woo hoo!  My home town of Manti reached 22 below on Tuesday morning so I am just grateful the lowest we have had to actually run in here is around 4 degrees.

No school for the kids today so I could have slept in a bit and went out on my own, but I knew I would be happier if I just got up and went out with Tom.  The temps were warmer, but with the rain in the night and just under freezing temps the roads were a bit slick.  It's a good thing it was just a nice easy run scheduled. 

Tom and I went to the church to meet up with the SF group.  We were a couple minutes early so we went up around the corner (to the conveniently located porta potty) and thought we'd meet up with them as they came up around the corner.  We never saw them and looked here and there along our run with no luck.  It was a mystery in the fog.  We couldn't figure out how we had missed them.  Oh well, it was a nice run with the 2 of us. 

As we finished 8 miles we finally found them.  They had decided to go west today instead of east.  I guess they wanted to ditch us or something.  At 8 miles we were 2 miles away from home and I was finishing with 10 so I headed back at that point.  The group was only at 6 miles so Tom joined in with them for a bit to add a few and then did a few solo.

One week from today is my scheduled 5K after my 12 week training.  We'll see how the bitter cold training has gone.  At least the race will be in St. George where the temps should be quite nice.