Hard... easy... repeat

It's not rocket science but it works eventually either breaking you down or building you up. After recovering from Wedneday's longish run with a couple of easy runs on Thurs, Friday was meant to be a double with 4 and 12. However, I was still tired and needed extra sleep thus missing the hang-on-the rails treadmill run. The extra bonus was to save any extra energy for the hills planned along with the 12 miler.

We had some light snow and sleet/freezing rain the previous night but by noontime things had warmed up with it mostly melted. I didn't get fooled into underdressing today and wore tights, jacket and extra headgear just in case. Eased into the run with 6 easy miles around the Point and then repeated the hill workout from a few weeks ago on Joes Point road by the golf course. This is a dead-end, out of the way dirt road with a 1/2 mile long uphill and today the idea was to jog easily up and then go hard coming back 'down' to simulate the pounding of the Boston hills. The road was mostly bare but had a few icy spots where I had to tiptoe carefully over. Managed to do a total of 6x1 mile loops in times between 7:50 and 8:14 which was slower than the last time around. I'm attributing it to the roads and still being a little tired and that's that! The legs and feet where complaining with various aches and pains during this workout but these all went away as fast as they appeared. You need to be very careful with the pounding this kind of workout can do.

Today, Saturday was just an easy 7 miles with a few strides mixed in. Another plus temperature day but there was a cool north wind and again didn't get sucked into underdressing. Felt a bit draggy but hopefully will be better for the long run with marathon pace planned for the morning.