Getting back to Boston

More uncharted territory today. Ran a few streets I've never seen before, working myway through 8.3 to finish off a 55-mile week. Down Burnham to Rogers to 58th, up 58th to Cliff, around past SHS to Old Greenwood, down to Country Club. Right on Country Club, worked my way around the north side of Hardscrabble to Valley, back to Burnham, back up to Free Ferry, under the freeway, right on 62nd, left on Gordon, down a street whose name I don't know, out on Rogers by Hooters, and back home.

Legs felt like lead, as I thought they would. But I also figured I needed to get some miles in now in case the snow and ice wipe out a good bit of next week's training. Get in 6 or so tomorrow and it'll be a 215-mile month.

Easy 6 at Ben Geren (well, maybe moderate), followed by strides in the parking lot. The Garmin quit in mid-first lap, but pace felt moderate and I finished somewhere in the 55-56 minute range, which would be a moderate pace. Then six 100-yard strides (more or less) for a total of 0.32. Finished the month with 215 miles. Legs felt pretty good considering the high mileage recently. Then I put screws in the Nikes so I'll be ready to run in the slickness tomorrow and/or Wednesday.

Progression run on the ice at the Southside track tonight. Got about a half-inch of sleet this morning, then it snowed maybe an inch, but the wind blew most of the snow away. That's OK. The old screwshoes worked beautifully, very little slippage. I was even able to push the pace a bit as the run went on; pretty sure the last mile was GMP or thereabouts. I'm guessing because the Garmin died after one lap (weird, because my cellphone did something similar this morning, and both of them should have been fully charged last night).

Temp when I finished was 16, wind chill of 1, but I had enough layers on that it really wasn't an issue. Gloves, balaclava, tech shirt and tights under wind shirt and track pants. Maybe too many layers. Tech shirt was soaked when I finished. It's supposed to be even colder tomorrow. Maybe I'll run, maybe I'll go to Fayetteville to go to the Georgia game with T. We'll see how the roads look tomorrow, and whether I want to deal with the short night's sleep before work on Thursday.

Wasn't going to run tonight. Then I got POd at the end of the basketball game (hosejob by the officials) and decided I better run off some steam. So drove back over to SHS. A lot less ice there, but still plenty, and strangely it seemed a lot more slippery than last night. Didn't come near falling, but skidded quite a bit. Anyway, did four miles in 38:30, came home and put three more screws in each shoe. We'll see if it's still icy tomorrow (sunshine cleared a lot today even though it never got much over 20 degrees), and if so, if more screws helped.

Too much ice on the track to run without screwshoes, didn't want to mess with screwshoes again. So I sucked it up and went to Harbortown for a dreadmill session. No air flow as usual; couldn't get the AC to come on. Did 6 at about 9:00 pace, then the final 2 at 7.7 mph, which equals 7:47 pace. Hard, but I managed. The one thing I like about the Harbortown fitness room is that there's a shower right there, and I used it -- fullblown cold water for about a minute.

Progression run in the snow at SHS. Pushed the last two miles because I was tired of snow hitting me in the face, and the last two laps and change were GMP, or close enough for government work. Ran in the screwshoes in two inches of fresh stuff; it was actually kinda fun, except running into the wind in the homestretch, where my face got peppered with flying flakes.

Supposed to do 10 tomorrrow. Not sure that's going to happen, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, Max just knocked the cordless phone off the desk and is chasing it across the floor like a catnip toy. El gato esta loco. Muy loco.