Still building the pyramid

Calm before the storm. This is what the view towards Navy Island from Pottery Creek looked like yesterday, Saturday just after my easy 7 mile run. It was bitter cold again, around -14C but with only a light wind making it bearable with enough layers. Nothing like the +12C that Dawn and the gang were enduring in shorts & t-shirts for the race in Calgary! I hear that a little winter reality and snow is headed their way real soon...

So today, Sunday, was long run day but with a twist; calling for 12 miles at marathon pace. I wimped out on the trip down to Somesville with Andrew and instead got up and going early at home before the storm was due to hit. Made the usual pre-long run preparations of a light breakfast of coffee, OJ, cereal with fruit and milk and more coffee (no bagel today). Then gear up with foot powder, bandaids for tender spots, vaseline in strategic places and plaster over my face with temps of -12C (10F) and windchill of -18C (0F). Out the door by 8am only 1 hour after waking up.

Began the run with an easy 6 mile warmup around town but didn't get to warm with the wind. I did see a few walkers including Cory (and her dad) who is in town to give a seminar on her thesis which was based on fisheries data we helped her with. At least they beat the storm too! After looping back home and refueling the water bottle with Gatorade I was ready to attempt the marathon pace part of the run. Because of the conditions it was scaled back to 10 miles on an out and back 5 mile measured course. The 1st 5 were more or less into the wind at just under 8:00 pace (aiming for 7:30) but the return leg with the wind behind was better at 7:44 pace including the first and last miles at 7:30 goal pace for a 10 mile time of 1:18:23. Total time for the 16 miles was 2:13 thus completing the week with 75 miles in 6 days of running and 3 doubles.
After the run I had time to play with some of my running data in a spreadsheet program. This plot shows my mileage by week and long runs (in yellow) since my last marathon in late October. The dotted line beyond this week is the planned mileage going ahead to my near term goal of Boston. My only comment on this is that it looks quite consistent (so far) and should allow for a decent performance barring injury of course.

It's now mid-afternoon, 2pm local and we've only had a few flurries so far. I'm hoping that it holds off for Andrew, assuming he did make the drive down to the race. The latest Bar Harbor area radar pictures looks like the storm is still coming and so hopefully he's safely on his way home by now. I'm looking forward to his race report!