Whew!

Glad that's over with! Over the past several marathon training cycles it's always been the midweek long-er run that has given me the most trouble. With the Pfitzinger based plan that I'm using it builds up to a maximum of 15 miles which are often tough to fit in with a busy family and work schedule. Add to that the fact that they are just plain hard to do on often tired legs and well you know...whew!

It was a relatively nice day for running here in January with our unpredictable Maritime weather on the balmy side. We had a light scatter of snow and freezing rain last night that was melting by the morning but the temperature stayed right around 1C (33F) making for slushy conditions and wet shoes. It was tough to get my butt in gear and out the door again but somehow I was able to shut up the negative voices and get under way shortly after noon. The run went fairly well, just felt slow and tired but on checking a few mile splits was actually managing about 8:00/mi pace. Also managed to avoid cutting the run short at several key turnoffs and ended up with 14 mi in just under 2 hrs.

So I'm still more or less still on track for the week and have confirmed another long run with Andrew on Sunday. It's always a treat to have company and really look forward to these runs.

Speaking of things to look forward to, there is also the Cabot Trail Relay race in May with the Aliant High Speed team. Really we're not fast, it's just a cool name but nothing as creative as some of the other names in the team list at the CTR website. Some of the legs on this hilly 24 hour relay are rather imposing but this year I've lucked out with an easier but still challenging final leg of the race. It'll be a nice change of pace after the marathon in April.