catching up
last monday i came down with a rather nasty bug and ended up taking the next week off from running. after a round of antibiotics, i should finally be good to go. honestly, i’d rather get sick like that now rather than when the weather is warmer. i’ll ease back into training this week and work on getting ready for the spring.
monday morning constitutional
this morning i headed back down to the glacial drumlin trail and headed toward town. the trail was still unplowed but it was a bit easier to run on as some of the snow had melted yesterday. i got tired of running on the snow and opted to head north past the hospital then across on michigan then in on comanche. i ended up with a slow seven miler and hit the shower.
MTD/YTD – 182 miles
Odometer – 26,519 miles
good day sunshine
what a difference a sunny day makes. i didn’t get out to run until the late afternoon but i did benefit from a day’s worth of sun to clear the roads of some snow. i ended up running the length of university avenue and back plus an improvised quarter mile to total nine miles in a few ticks over 70 minutes.
fresh powder
i got rolling in the early afternoon and headed west along the glacial drumlin towards wales. the trail was plowed earlier in the week but subsequently we got an additional 2-3 inches of powdery snow. undeterred, i headed down the trail as it was into the wind. (during the winter i’m especially focused on going out into the wind so i don’t get chilled on my return trip.) admittedly, the snow under foot slowed me down maybe 2 to 3 minutes a mile so the effort really turned into a "time" based long run.
i turned around after an hour with a tailwind and an elevation drop to help me get back home. by the time i made the turn off the trail and back onto city streets, my shoes felt like concrete blocks. i made it home in 1:57:26 so i negative split the effort by a little more than 2:30. unfortunately, i was only able to cover 11.5 miles during that time. normal conditions would have made for 14-15 miles covered. regardless, time-wise it was the longest run i’ve done in awhile. plus, since i barely saw anyone else out the trail…which made it rather serene.
more hamster miles
morning temps still hovered around zero so i opted to bring gear and run at noon. i did my normal first mile warm up starting at 6 mph and upping it by .5 mph each quarter mile. after a mile, i increased the speed by .1 mph for a half mile and repeated until i reached 8 mph. i then decreased the speed by .1 mph for each half mile until reaching 7.5 mph. overall, i ended up with 6 miles in just under 48 minutes.
thankfully the weather is expected to warm up so i’ll be able to get out and about this weekend.
MTD/YTD – 154.5 miles
Odometer – 26,492 miles