All about that pace.

6:00am

When I went outside and saw the snow I did a U turn and went right back in. It was heavy snow and rain mixed and coming down a little sideways. I grabbed some heavy snow gloves, said a prayer and ran back out the door. I probably looked like a lobster running down the street with those gloves...too bad I didn't have a red sweatsuit :) The first couple miles went by at 7:13 and 7:05; I wanted to make sure I really warmed up before the weather started working on me. By the third mile my sweats had taken on a few pounds of water and my legs were feeling a little restricted so I slowed down to about 7:50. In mile 5 I inhaled a big snow flake and suffered through a major coughing fit for about a 1/4 mile. During the last few miles the snow, actually slush started piling up and every step would splash freezing slush on the opposite foot. I tried lengthening my stride, shortening it, nothing helped avoid the splash, but those last few miles went by at 7:30. What a whiner huh? I should get a gold star or something for this run:)

Pace 7:45

4:30am

No more snow, just wind and sideways rain today. Is winter over yet?

Pace 7:46

4:30am

Today's run can be described in two words:

soggy chafed

Pace 7:51

4:30am

No rain this morning!!! I managed to knock out 10 miles wearing a heavy layer of bodyglide. I think I'm going to survive this "injury" after all :)

Pace 7:45

4:30am

Good run for being so tired. I got called into work at 1:30am to fix a server and about 3:30am I was back in bed for a whole hour before my run. So, on the bright side, I didn't get rained on even though it was pouring cats and dogs earlier when I drove to work and back. I'm tired, but I'm also really glad I didn't skip the run today. I feel pretty good for running 6 days in a row and I'm looking forward to the race on Saturday!

Pace 7:50

9:00am

Today's race was awesome! The weather was perfect (no rain, no wind), and my beautiful wife and son even came out to cheer for me as I ran by our house. They also came to see me at the finish line 1hour, 27minutes and 16seconds after I started! I crushed my goal of 90 minutes and beat my best 15k pace by 4 seconds per mile! I only placed 4th in my age group, but I got 3rd place for the overall series. What I lack in speed I made up for with persistence.

Mile splits: 6:56, 6:45, 7:03, 6:41, 7:05, 7:06, 7:13, 7:05, 7:16, 7:03, 7:06, 7:06, 2:43

I also had a motorcycle event to attend after the race and it was kind of funny all the weird looks I got this morning when I picked up my race number wearing big clunky boots and leathers. No, I didn't run in them, but that would have been impressive huh? Maybe next year.

Pace 7:01