Weather - 19 degrees, clouds, snow. Easy 3.30 miles run around the neighborhood. Crystal Lake Park has been closed because of flooding, and Busey Woods is also flooded, so I have been running more on residential streets the past week. Today while I was working at the park district I began thinking about the upcoming 5k in 3 weeks. I tried to determine the bottom, top, and middle time limits which I feel capable of achieving. Given that my main goal this year is to break 19:00 in a 5k, this first 5k in March will be nowhere close. On March 8th the temperature is likely to be between 30-45 degrees, so I will not have full lung capacity, as I run stronger when the temperature is above 60. I have also done very little speed work this winter, and I am just now beginning hill workouts. The strong part of my current fitness level is my endurance. The times of my final 2 5k's last summer were 19:22. I will need to add 1 minute to that time because of the cold weather, and one more minute because of lack of speed work, which means my goal time for the March 5k will be 21:20. If the temperature is warmer than expected, I may be able to get to 20:40. If the weather is very cold and I feel lousy I may not break 22:00. I recall that my first 5K of last season in early March was run in 22:30. However, I did no winter training last year, so I was running on about 3 weeks of training. I have a good base built this year, so I am confident that I will have the endurance to feel pretty good on the run. The slow predicted time does not worry or bother me, I know once the warm weather arrives, and the speed training commences, I will begin to reap in the summer what I have sowed in the winter. #88 z.m. - #2 | 