stop, if you feel like it
i continue to be astonished at the frequency of folks sailing right through stop signs during the wee hours of the morning. as i was approaching an intersection, about a mile away from finishing my 5 mile morning constitutional, someone blew right through without even slowing down. needless to say, i don’t wander into an intersection if i see cars approaching.
MTD/YTD – 53 miles
Odometer – 28,160.7 miles
back on the wagon
admittedly my motivation took a dive with my decision not to run Boston this year. add on an arctic blast of weather and i ended up with a week of no exercise.
i did have the opportunity to volunteer at the inaugural running of the Icebreaker Indoor Marathon at the Pettit Center on saturday. it was great to watch competitors run 95.4 laps around the speedskating track as i knew a handful of the competitors personally. i’d like to run the 2010 event and am hoping the organizers reconsider their stance on headphones as their music selection wasn’t remotely close to what i would consider motivating. regardless, the local newspaper did cover the event and posted an article online called Runners race in circles to finish indoor marathon. a first-person account of the event by Nic was also posted to his blog entitled My ’09 Icebreaker Run.
now, onto my efforts. i got out for a brief 5 mile effort on monday afternoon then another 5 miles this morning with temps hovering around 10 degrees. while i’d like to participate in the badger state games snowshoe race, my two oldest daughters have a piano recital on sunday afternoon. i have found two more snowshoe races in late february that i may be able to participate in. perhaps this weekend i’ll head back out for another training session on the snowshoes.
making lemonade
as the say goes, if life hands you lemons…well, in this case – – snow…make the best of it. in that spirit i headed to the retzer nature center this afternoon with my snowshoes. i bought the snowshoes in july a few years back and haven’t got much use out of them. the only other time i had run with them was right after a significant snow in the park a quarter mile from home. since the snow was fresh, i sank down way too far to be able to walk…let alone run.
the retzer nature center allows snowshoe-rs on their trails in the winter, which is great because over time the trails get compacted down which makes for easier running. i initially headed south to the back portion of the park and did a loop around a section that is rather swampy during the summer. i then ran across a prairie section and into a wooded area of trails. the whole area is heavily glaciated so the hills were plentiful. i then made my way back towards the trailhead with 2 miles recorded on my garmin.
i roughly repeated my initial loop then improvised a bit to roll 5 miles in 61:36 (12:19/mile). what a blast! a little change of pace was just what i needed. honestly, it’s pretty easy to run on the snowshoes – – even up/down hill. on 1/25, there’s 5k and 10k snowshoe races associated with the badger state games. depending on weather and our schedule, maybe i’d head up to wausau to participate.
fueled by PB and J
i opted to run in the mid-afternoon after a lunch of two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – – on italian bread. temps were in the mid-twenties and the wind was from the north. i initially headed south on comanche then north on university. i ran past uw-waukesha and made a 180 after reaching the frontage road for I-94. the pace was a bit faster on the way back as not only did i have the wind at my back but it is mainly downhill. regardless, i mustered 9 miles which is longer than i have ran at once in the last few months.
MTD/YTD – 33 miles
Odometer – 28,140.7 miles
fresh powder
overnight, we got about an inch of snow which did a great job of camouflaging the sheets of ice leftover from last weekends freezing rain. i almost biffed it on my way back home – – twice. thankfully, i don’t have much knee lift so i’m a bit less "at risk" for falling. regardless, i mustered 4 miles and hit the shower.
one of my goals for 2008 was to run 2000 miles (or more) which i didn’t meet. my 2008 mileage still ranks as the 6th best in my 19 years of running.
2202 miles – 2004
2000 miles – 2007, 2006 (tie)
1959 miles – 2002
1933 miles – 2001
1770 miles – 2008
1750 miles – 2000
1685 miles – 2003
1598 miles – 2005
1573 miles – 1999