99 bottles of powerade on the wall...

99 bottles of beer... you take one down, you pass it around...

Would you believe this is my 99th post? Where did the time go? It's only been 5 months and still finding things to say and talk about with a few kind souls paying attention once in awhile.

Today was another cruel winter day for running with conditions no better than our endurance test on Sunday. From the sounds of it, poor Andrew is still suffering from the repercussions (mostly mental though I'd dare say ;-). Today it barely got above -10C (15F) and a windchill of -18C (0F) was the warmest it got, for about the 5th day in a row. This is supposed to last for a few more days and we might possibly get up to the melting point by the weekend (let's hope)!

But it didn't stop me from running, especially after a whole day of rest from our 20-something mile ordeal on Sunday. So at high noon with the sun well obscured by the dull grey clouds and swirling gusty winds keeping the flags well extended I made preparations for battle. Multiple layers, 3 on top (not enough), 2 on bottom (coulda used more), vaseline, bacalava, neck protector, warm hat, headbands and off to the races.

On tap today, 9 miles with 8x600m reps at 5k pace (what kind of idiot came up with that!). Started out easy, did a few stretches, and about a 1 mile warmup jog to the base of the Joe's Point road and hill where I did my 1 mile repeats last week. The hill is about 1/2 mile at a mostly gentle grade, nothing overly steep but enough to wear you down. Did the reps mostly by time but tried to hit the same end point each time and then walk, gasp, jog my way the last 200m of the hill. Of course this was both up and down so it actually accomplished a dual purpose of providing some hill work (especially downhill) as well. Finished off the last rep as the full downhill distance of 800m in 3:05 which was acceptable given the conditions. Actually once I got started the wind and cold were barely part of my conciousness anymore. Wasn't flinging off all my clothes but it was no longer the main concern, rather the struggle to keep form and make it to the same mark on the hill each time.

Nice to finish the repeats but still had 4 more miles to get in and this is where things got hard. The 1st 2 miles were a nice jog with the wind at my back but then after the turnaround it was a teeth first struggle to make it back to homebase. The lack of adequate extra layers made themselves known and it was a relief to finally stop and call it a day.

Guess I'd better get to work on number 100, with miles to go and the roads always beckoning.