Snow Day

Yup, it's still winter here and we'll just have to make do and put up with it for a few more weeks. They did a pre-emptive strike at the local schools shutting them down for the day, even though it didn't even start to snow until noon and very little accumulation until about mid-afternoon. I guess they just want to be extra cautious, "But in my day, we never got a day off ...".

So what am I doing out in this you ask? Why didn't I play it smart and get my run in early before it all started? Well a couple of reasons, #1: hate to get up early (only for the long runs), #2: still feeling the effects from the interval workout on Tues with a bit of general tiredness and not looking forward to the ambitious plan in my log for today.

As I posted before, things were great on my 90 minute run on Weds, the day after my mile intervals as I sailed along at an easy pace of 8:10/mi. However, the next day the old DOMS (delayed onset muscle syndrome) kicked in and things were very slow and stiff. All I could manage was a 1hr run at about 8:25 pace but at least the heartrate stayed low. Bonus was the nice sunny day with temperature just around the freezing point (almost balmy!).

Back to the plan. Today it called for a 2 hour run with 6 miles at marathon pace. Sheesh! Maybe if I delay long enough the coach will give me a pass. Oh, I'm the coach! No free pass today. Besides it's not that cold and not accumulating much so let's try the roads 1st. Maybe, I could do part of the run outside in the fresh snow and then finish with the fast miles on the treadmill. Oh and I'd forgot to mention that I'd worked thru lunch and left work early so I could run before the real storm hit. After even more time-wasting, window gazing at the dark clouds and snow, gatorade mixing, and setting up the treadmill along with a change of clothes it was time to go. The 1st part of the run, which turned out to be about 8 miles, was actually rather nice. The temperature was only about -1C (30F) and the driving wind and snow was only an issue for a few open spots where it felt like running in molasses. Besides that I just cruised along at an easy pace mostly on the deserted side roads in town. There wasn't much accumulation yet (less than an inch) and so the footing was good for the most part but not anything to try faster running on. The picture was taken just as I got back from the 1st part of my run.

It was then a quick change and on the awaiting treadmill. After a 1/2 mile warmup it was straight into 6 miles at about marathon pace where I slowly ramped the pace up from 7:30 to 7:13. Ended up with average pace of 7:18 and heartrate of 143 although it was getting to be harder work for the last two miles. All in all it was a decent workout and managed to get my money's worth once again.

Hope you're running is also going well.