Psalm 91:1 NKJV He who dwells in the secret place

This weekend I had too many late nights. Our church bought a Dell Laptop on black Friday that I suggested we buy because it was a steal. On Friday night I stayed up till 2am to get it ready for Church on Sunday.

Then Saturday I had my relatives come over and they brought their Nintendo Wii over and we stayed up till 1am playing that. I haven't played a gaming console for a while, and we have an XBOX, except I did on Thanksgiving after my run (Madden 2007).

After the weekend late nights I slept very good last night and went to bed around 9pm and didn't want to wake-up and run. I'm thinking I'm hitting a point where runnings is not motivating right now, but I don't want to take any time off to lost fitness. The best thing I can do is fight through this feeling and try to stay motivated. I've really worked hard this year and haven't, "that I can think of ", taken more than two days off in a row all year but maybe one time, and this counts part of last year.

Anyway, back to the training today. I ran 8.3 miles at an overall 6:34 pace in 54:31 minutes. I did a mini 3 mile tempo (5:52, 6:04, 5:55) which felt good, because I've been lacking running tempo's or speed work since the STG marathon. One thing I've noticed is I can still run when I'm tired, but its not the best way to train, and we all know that.

Lunch: 

Ran 5.3 miles at an overall 6:14 pace in 33:08 minutes.  Mile splits (6:33, 6:18, 6:12, 6:00, 6:12).  I went home on my lunch hour and ran around my neighborhood.  I wanted to do a little bit faster run than this morning. 

I ran in a snow, wind storm today. It was not the funnest of runs. I started out at around 6:50am and the snow was coming down hard along with the wind to the point that it was hard to see the road while I was running. I wore my full gator mask if not my face could have seriously been in trouble. I was covered in snow and ice and soaked when I got back home. My belly was a bright cherry red, but it was okay. I ran 8.40 miles at an overall 6:38 pace in 55:47. I was glad to see my house. I'm going to try to get out again on my lunch hour or run on the treadmill at home or the gym.

 Lunch:

I ran on the treadmill today at lunch, because I didn't have the right running apparel at work to run from there.  I did 5.4 miles in 35:22 on the treadmill.   The last .3 I did at a 5:00 pace.  I could say this run was exciting but I won't. When you see the same four walls in 5 miles it's hard to be motivated for excitement.  Although the treadmill did have a TV so I plugged my headphone in and the only excitement I got was changing the channels.
 

This morning it was 20 degrees with 16 mph wind gusts so the weather said it felt like 10 degrees. I dressed in my North Face wind jacket and a gator mask and didn't have any problems with the cold.

I was going to do an easy run, but I don't know what happen. I think knowing I wanted to do 10 miles this morning and the fact that I left the house later than I wanted to, and I had to be back by 8am to take the kids to school caused me to push the run. I ran 10.4 at an overall 6:34 pace in 1:08.

Mile 5 6:16 uphill/downhill equal

Mile 6 6:07 1/4 uphill and the rest downhill

Mile 7 5:52 completely downhill

Mile 8 5:57 downhill/flat equal

Mile 9 6:04 completely flat

Mile 10 6:26 flat (I dropped the pace to do a cool down)

The effort really didn't seem hard and I ran by feel.

Evening:  Ran 1.66 miles with my wife at a 11:23 pace.  She's doing great and I'm proud of her.

AM: It wasn't as cold today when I started running at 6:30am, although there was a terrible constant wind of around 25mph. Today I run an easy run of 10 miles at an overall 6:48 pace in 1:08. I really average around 7 minute miles but I added 8 x 100 strides at the end of the run.

Lunch:

 Ran 5.4 miles on the Treadmill at home did a couple miles barely under a 7 minute pace.  Did .4 at a 5:30 pace.  Mostly a relaxing run on the Treadmill if you can have one.  I always find the miles harder on the Treadmill than I do outside for some reason.  Our Treadmill is set at a 1.5% grade and can't go any lower, but you can raise the incline to a 12% grade.
 

AM: This morning it was 14 degrees but no wind and it really didn't feel that cold. Today I was just focusing on an easy pace to build the aerobic mileage base over the winter. I receive good advice from Paul and Steve about this winter's training, and building a good aerobic mileage base from their information and reading I've been doing so help increase my performances this coming year. I ran 12.46 miles at an overall 6:50 pace in 1:24. I did 8 x 100 strides at the end of the run. I stayed up late last night... because I was excited that my Dallas Cowboys won that I couldn't go to bed right away after the game. But I didn't seem too tired for the run this morning which I started around 6:40am.

Lunch:

Ran 4.1 miles on the home treadmill in a 7 ish minute miles.  Quick run to end the miles for today. 

Ran 14.2 miles in an overall 6:41 pace in 1:35 in a snowing blowing mess. Did some medium MP miles but not a very hard effort 70%. Did some miles in 6:3ish and 6:2ish range. I give more of a report later. Very slick so I had to be careful.

 I did this run with no water or fuel before or during the run which I would usually eat a banana if the run is over 13 miles but I didn't today.  It really didn't affect me in the run.  I don't know why but I was in a hurry to get out the door to run this morning and I really did have anything to do today but Christmas shop later.  This was a very cool and windy run and most all of it was in a headwind and very slick on the roads.  85 miles to end the week is good so I'm happy with that.

While Christmas shopping my work phone sent me a text alert that one of our server hard drives failed so I spend from 6pm to 11:30pm working on that  (this was on a Solaris Sun Fire V440 Server if your a computer geek).  I guess you know now why I'm up blogging so late.  No running tomorrow.