Long May You Run

10 miles on the track.  Warm day, 40-45 degrees, felt like early spring.  First day above freezing for a long time.  1:29:36  8:58 ave, slow and easy.

5.65 am miles

10.9 pm miles.  warm day, 40°  1:35:23  8:45 ave pace.  With the break in the weather, all the snow is gone from the track, so I don't have to climb the mountain that is B street.  What a nice little break, flat miles! 

5.65 am miles 52:08   9:14 ave

10.9 pm miles 1:37:38  8:57 ave.  Flat run home, 6 miles on the track.  I am very tired and beat up.  It's days like these that make me think I'll never be able to run fast again.  Today was a hard pounding grind.  I did not have the benefit of energy, rhythm, flow or any of those other thinks that make running nice.  Every step was a feat of strength.  I know it's making me stronger.  I guess this is why training is hard. 

5.95 am miles  54:55  9:13 ave pace, very tired.  Put a little tape on my achilles, made a huge difference.  I'm going to do this every day for a while.

 10.9 pm miles.  8:48 ave.  6 miles on the track.  I averaged about a nine minute pace on the track.  I was pretty miserable, my legs felt heavy, every step was work and painful.  This caused me to think negatively, which defeats the whole purpose of running.  I tried to push out the negative and focus on positive things, this worked of course.  I also became angry, I was upset that the running was so labored and hurting and I'm sick and tired of the cold.  The last two miles I picked up the pace out of anger.  My last two miles were 8:13 and 8:15.  Tomorrow should me an easy day, only one short run in the morning.  Saturday I've got to put down a 20 miler, I've been putting it off the last two weekends, now is the time.  I iced both achilles tendons, light day tomorrow, looking to be reasonably strong on Saturday.  Oh, and did I say I was sick of the cold?  Yes, I'm sick of the cold.  Next week is supposed to be lows in the high teens and highs in the low 30's.  Yipee! 

5.65 am miles, no watch.  felt better from yesterday.  I was not fast today, but I felt strength in my legs.

20.28 miles out and back from home.  Totally flat, ave pace 8:57  Total time 3:01:38

Perfect morning for a run (at least for January).  It rained over night so the roads were damp and the air felt moist.  It was 7:25 am, dark , perfectly still air, bright moon in the western sky, which was the direction I was headed.  My goal was at least three hours on my feet and or 20 miles.  This is my first 20 miler before Boston.  I started out slow and planed on staying slow for the first 10 miles.  Once I hit ten I was going to evaluate what to do then, hopefully I'd be able to pick it up a little on the way back, that was the best possible outcome, however, I was prepared to slog it back at the same pace and I was still going to be happy.

First 10

9:27  9:30  9:50  9:35  9:25  9:27  9:19  9:07  9:12  9:13

11-15

9:13  9:03  9:01  8:59  8:30  I'm starting to pick it up and by mile 15 I wanted to pound hard the rest of the way but I told myself to hold back, this is my first 20 miler in the training cycle so keep it at 8:30, maybe slowly take it up to 8 by mile 20.

16-20

8:22  8:04 (oops, a little faster that I wanted) 8:08 8:04 7:21, then a cool down of .28 miles at 9:25.

I decided to hammer the last mile, I wanted Rattletrap to be proud!

After a couple of days of miserable running, this one was wonderful.  I felt very strong at mile 15.  This run turned out to be much better than I had hoped for.   A very good day indeed.  

I weighed myself after the run, 148.  I felt good about that too.