Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

30F, cloudy. Recovery run.

In the ongoing saga of the Frozen Park Bathrooms, today brought a promising new development.  The "closed" signs were down, the water was running, and whirring away under the sink was a space heater!   Other bathrooms I passed (but did not enter) were missing their "closed" signs as well.   At last, a worthy expenditure of my tax dollars! 

Nice run. I'm calling it "recovery" but all the moving parts were in fine shape and I felt plenty of energy.  I give the credit to my being able to sleep late today.  

Edited to add:

 Totals for Mon-Sun week:

Mon 7.75

Tue 10.07

Wed 8.15 w/ VO2: 5 x 800m repeats

Thu 9.88

Fri off

Sat 18.44

Sun 5.11

TOTAL 59.4 miles

33F, cloudy, occasional flake or two of snow falling, one heavy sleet shower for about 2 minutes, a bit of fog moving in.  Ice and snow on ground.  General-aerobic run.  20 min. weights. 

We got a little snow last night, and it was really slippery out there this morning, especially on the hills.  I spent my run looking for the best traction and trying to stay vertical, but it was fun and I had plenty of energy.

Some streets were terribly icy and I had to run on the grassy parking strip to survive, others were well sanded and clear with great traction.  But my favorite were the few streets where a bit more snow built up and where it was flat.  Just enough snow to be soft and have good traction, but not so much that you sink in as if it were sand, about 5/8of an inch. 

33 degrees felt so nice after the cold air we've had to endure.  I had holiday music going on my iPhone (Pandora) and the snow with the Christmas lights looked so beautiful.  A really nice run. 

39F, cloudy, wind 11mph, occasional light mist, slush on streets. Finished on TM in VFFs.  Core & pushups. 

The noise of a storm woke me up last night and I got up to use the bathroom.  Mr. Sno was standing outside our bedroom door looking down at the living room windows. "It's slushing hard," he said.  I thought maybe I was dreaming. "It's slushing?" Sure enough, the windows on the east side of the house were plastered with a thick layer of slush that was sagging in waves and being replaced by new slush continually.  The glow of our porch light came through, but the windows were opaque. 

By this morning the storm was past but most streets were covered with slush and it was piled up at the curbs.  This presented somewhat of a challenge, as I had to find tire tracks to run in on the quiet streets, or watch out for the frequent cars on the better traction of the main roads.  These main roads usually had a broad clear track in the middle with a 5 or 6 foot border of slush on either side, in which I frequently had to walk gingerly while waiting for cars to pass in the middle.  I love my headlamp and reflective jacket!  But slow going today. 

42F, cloudy, wind 11 mph w/ gusts to 20. Tempo run: 3 E, 4 T on roads and hills (8:55, 8:36, 8:50, 8:49), 2+ E.   20 min. strength work. 

I managed to miss the rain by pure luck. Rain before and rain after, but no rain for me!  42F felt pretty warm. That is the first time we've been over 40 for quite a while.  

The splits aren't great but I have to give myself some credit for the hills and wind.  Even so, I don't believe I was pushing myself as hard as I did on my tempo runs last summer.  The pace without hills/wind today would probably have been 8:40 to 8:45, as opposed to the 8:30 I was shooting for last summer.  Mile 2, the fastest mile, was mostly flat with a bit of downhill for a couple of blocks.

I think I'll be ok relaxing a little on tempo runs for 2 reasons: the slightly slower pace gives me enough breath to make the work focus on lactate threshold more than VO2. In other words, legs more than lungs.  I always felt there was very little difference between my VO2 workouts and my tempo runs last summer, except for the duration of agony.  I liked thinking "this is like a 10K" instead of "this is like a 5K."  

The second reason it seemed like a better pace was that I really can make it through 4 miles without coughing up a lung afterward, and I can even believe that I will work up to longer distances.  I think the continuous tempo run will be better for me.  Last summer I had to break them up when I went over 4 miles.  

Please let me know if my thinking is in error here, blog-buddies.  I don't want to cheat myself. I just want to be more clear about the objectives of these workouts and not see them all as the same torture just dressed up with different names.  :)

 Had a great day of skiing at Stevens Pass.  The snow was very good, except near the bottom where it had a little rain crust on it.  I feel like I did squats all day. 

48F, mostly clear and starry, windy (11-15 w/ gusts to 25).  Easy run.  20 min. strength, stretches, and Stick. 

Tired and very stiff today, but my running muscles felt ok.  I  just took it really easy and tomorrow I'm having a day off to make sure I'm fresh for a long run on Sunday.  Have a great weekend, everyone!