Making hay while the sun shines

And the fire is now burning brightly. It's cool having a remote with flame and fan setting controls but there still is a bit of trim work and likely room redecorating to come.

I'm all set for the running weekend with the guys, Downeast Andrew, Marc on the Run and possibly Jamie-Maine Runner down in southern Maine where the wind never blows and the sun always shines brightly, ha! The plan is to motor down on Friday and get some runs in on Saturday and Sunday between the eating, ice-cream, running movies and beer.

Thanks for all the interest and nice comments on my 'plan'. I've started to implement the details and so far it's been 100% except with the usual rearranging of days to fit my schedule. After Sunday's long cold run with Andrew, Jonathan and a drive by sighting of Stephanie the 1st day of the plan on Monday was a rest day! I also spent about 7 hours on the road driving my Mom back up to Bathurst from her appointment in Saint John. She's doing very well and it's really nice to see her on these long trips when we can get all caught up on things.

Tues was the long drive back home from Bathurst but it turned out to be very revolutionary in my thinking about how I approach running because of the podcast that I was listening to by Simply Stu. It's episode #52 and the idea is a bit hard to explain in detail but the short story is that Stu recently was tested at a high tech lab to determine his lactate levels while running and he was discussing the results with the physiologist Neal Henderson. He could tell that Stu overtrains on a regular basis before taking even one step on the treadmill and that his easy paces are never truly walking in the park easy when doing base work. As a result he does not improve because he never allows himself to rest and recover. You really should listen to it but what I got from this is that there is a place for easy running in my program and it starts today by using heartrate as a guide.

So... I arrived home all enthused to go for a run at an easy, easy pace (love it!) Since the sun was shining brightly with no wind at all I made it a medium long run of 14 miles, at the prescribed easy pace with heartrate below 135. There were also 2 marathon pace miles thrown into the day's schedule which came in at 7:17 and 7:10 each where the HR pushed up to about 150. Total time of 1:54 for 8:04 pace and felt great!

Weds - just an easy 1 hour run, again trying to keep the heartrate low as I meandered around town. Conditions were again calm and mild around -2C.

Thurs - 90 minute run today with hillwork. Started out with an easy 1 mile warmup and then ran at a strong effort up a 1/2 mile gradual hill of about 150 ft elevation. Finished each repeat with an easy jog down the hill. Repeated for 4 loops and then completed the 11 mile run with (you know) an easy run around town. It was cooler today, around -10C and a noticeable wind with a bite but felt good when it was at your back.

So far so good but I can see a few bumps coming up in the road with the weather and busy schedules. Good running and watch out for those SUV's and snowplows!