Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

56F.  6 @ 8:30 AP.  

35F, light drizzle.  6 @ 8:26 AP.  Legs have felt strangely cruddy the last few days, not sure why.  Hoping this easy week will fix it, although last week was pretty dang easy too.

On the plus side, I made it to 1000 miles on my last pair of Kinvara 1's.  Not sure how much longer they have though, the upper is really starting to pull away on one of them. 

32F.  6 @ 7:51 AP.  Legs were a little bouncier today.  3 days of 6-mile recovery runs usually does the trick.  60% of the time, it works every time.

37F.  8 @ 7:09 AP.  Included a 3-mile block on the way back @ 6:39 AP.  Felt nice and springy this morning.

Here's my pacing plan on the 50k - for the first 10 miles, let the 7-minute guy gap me by a minute, and hit the 10-mile mark in 71 min.  Then hold it there at 7:00 pace for the next 10, hitting the 20-mile mark in 2:21.  From there, go by feel but be conservative until crossing the marathon mat, hopefully in 3:04-3:05.  Then idontknowwhat for the last 5.  I think the biggest challenge will be running at such a low effort initially, in a race setting.  Having never run this far before will hopefully give me a healthy fear of going too fast.

58F.  5 @ 7:42 AP.  Included some lazy strides.  Really nice afternoon to escape from the office for a bit.

Weather should be to my liking in Fort Worth on Sunday.  Upper 30s to start, mid to upper 40s at the end, probably some rain.  I have run a couple races in cold, wet conditions and I always seem to do well relative to the field (as opposed to hot, humid races where I get beat by 80-year-old grandmas).  My best workouts have always come in the 30-40 degree range (I keep track of this stuff) so I'm excited to get to at least start out in the 30s.  My average marathon has been squarely in the 50s.

Cowtown cancelled the expo today and all the Saturday races due to the EXTREME winter weather.  I guess the whole city is pretty much shut down now.  Fortunately my race is Sunday, although it will now start an hour later.  Thanks for the extra 2 degrees, you wusses!  Not looking forward to getting my bib tomorrow with the EXTREME crowds that will be mobbing the expo for the 5 hours it's open, but at least we're racing.

3 mile shakeout before leaving San Antonio.  

I got an email from Cowtown right after I made the 4-hour drive to Fort Worth saying they were working with officials to determine whether conditions would even allow for the race tomorrow.  Ugh.  I made fun of them yesterday but admittedly the roads are a little treacherous up here, especially if you consider that there are a bunch of Texans driving on them.  Skating-rink-like in a lot of spots.  I really hope this race happens; I can't exactly go find another big road 50k next week if they cancel it.

**update - 50k and marathon were cancelled but we can all run the half since that part of the course is ok.  I guess I will run it since I'm already here.  I'm in terrible HM shape and really don't feel like running that hard but maybe a good progression to HMP.  Sucks!

Here's my hotel, seems to be covered with this cold, white substance.