Getting back to Boston

Waited out a GI episode before I finally left at 3:15 for my run, and darn near yurped during the run. In spite of that, run went well. Even switched things up to go UP, not down, the two biggest hills in this part of town (well, went up and down one of them), and the last big uphill I semi-pushed. Anyway, did 7.22 in an hour-8. I see no need to really push things for a couple of weeks yet, so that was a perfectly adequate run, and I will continue to seek out hills frequently to get ready for Boston and/or St. George/CIM/whichever downhill marathon I fund.

Despite the nearly uncontrollable urge to come home from work and go to bed (which is still there), went out for a run. This time, 5.3, easy with a slight progression. Averaged 9:16, which is really faster than I thought, so maybe it was more than a slight progression. Not sure I didn't sleep through part of the run, though. At any event, old OCD is determined to get that 2500 by the end of the year.

Decided to push it a little bit tonight. Ran the first 6-plus at well under 9:00 pace, then took it up a notch on the last leg home. Turned out the last .7 was at sub-MP, which brought the overall average down to 8:33. If I can get to where this kind of pace is fairly easy, I'll be in good shape for St. George, Boston or anywhere else. Wasn't quite that easy tonight. I had no trouble maintaining it, but I was working to do it. Sweating pretty good, too, despite temps in probably the upper 40s.

Just for fun, plugged my half-marathon PR, which comes back as my best race result on the VDOT charts, into McMillan's calculator and hit the button. The predicted marathon time that came back was one second off my Memphis time. Then when I plugged in the Memphis time, the half time that came back was exactly what I ran in Conway 14 months ago. It did show that my 5K PR is a little soft, which does not surprise me given that I ran it under summerlike conditions, and that the 10K is a little softer, again no surprise given that I ran THAT in a thunderstorm and had to run some extra distance to dodge huge puddles in the road. But that gives me some targets for the spring and fall. Now I have to decide whether to focus on the shorter races for the spring, or just d general training and run a couple of marys just for fun. Need to decide something quick; the price for LRM goes up on 1/1/10.

Slow and easy tonight, largely just running out frustrations. I knew I had to work Saturday and Sunday, didn't realize that also meant Christmas Eve and Christmas. My fault for not clarifying with the boss. So now I may very well be here by mself, except for the time I'm working. Bah humbug. Anyway, knocked out another 5 and change tonight, getting ever closer to the 2500 mark. I'll average more than 48 miles a week for the year -- over 50 for the weeks I actually ran, since I can think of three-plus weeks skipped due to illness or moving or both.

Dashing through the snow, on a chilly Christmas day, o'er the fields I go, slipping sliding away, Nose like Rudolph's gleamed, dripping all the way, took me 1:43 to run, 10.5 today.

OK, so I'm not a poet and I know it. I still quadrupled (at least) my lifetime mileage of snow/ice running today, after working at the nursing home, cooking Christmas dinner myself and playing snow games with the reluctant cats.

Back out into the snow today for 7.6. Kind of a progression run, not intentionally but just got going faster as the run went on. Got to try out new mid-layer running top with LED light attached semi-permanently to the sleeve, plus reflectors. Also bought a balaclava but didn't try that (yet). Ice had subsided greatly, not entirely gone on the JBH trail but easy enough to go around, so it was a lot less treacherous than last night's run.