Friday, 1/22: 16-mile Long Run
View from my window on Saturday |
Saturday, 1/23: Blizzard Peak
There was definitely no way to run on Saturday. The snow was coming down heavily with "whiteout" conditions. I spent the day inside with Greg, just relaxing and doing housework. We had stocked up on good food, so we had a really nice dinner with wine. It was nice having the long run behind me and not having to worry about it. Saturday night, I slept for 9 hours and 41 minutes, without waking up at all. It was truly amazing because I usually get about 7 hours and 30 minutes. I guess the blizzard totally relaxed and de-stressed me!
Sunday, 1/24: 41 minutes + 41 minutes
A plow came by our neighborhood relatively early in the day, so by about 10:30, my neighborhood road had a clear path of packed snow. I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to try out my Yaktrax (which I had bought last winter but never wore) to run in the snow. They worked really well-- no slipping or falling! But because there was still quite a bit of snow, my gait was not normal, and I
In front of my house after run #2. Greg shoveled this snow. |
Monday, 1/25: 6 x 800m, 3 x 200m
I woke up on Monday morning in amazement. According to my FitBit, I had slept for 10 hours and 16 minutes, uninterrupted. This was completely unheard of! I had no clue why I was sleeping so much. I didn't feel sick, but I guess my body needed it.
My office was closed, which meant I could run at whatever time of day I wanted. Given this flexibility, I figured it would be best to get Tuesday's speed work out of the way on Monday, in case I had to go into the office on Tuesday. Obviously the track was not an option so I programmed the workout into my Garmin and ran a half-mile stretch of the street just outside of my neighborhood. I could not run in my neighborhood without Yaktrax, so I simply walked on the snow until I reached the edge of my neighborhood before and after the run.
As for the workout itself, yes, I had to share the road with cars. And yes, this was a little dangerous. But this street was fully plowed and wider than the typical road, so there was enough room for me. My paces were slower than if I had been at the track, but I chalked it up to being an incline/decline instead of a smooth track. After warm-up and cool-down, I logged a total of 9.1 miles for the day.
Tuesday, 1/26: 60 minutes
And AGAIN I woke up after an insanely long and uninterrupted night of sleep! One theory is that there's a constant noise of construction or trucks near my house that goes on at all hours of the night, and I'm guessing it stopped with all this snow. So maybe I finally had the quiet I needed to sleep well. 9 hours, 19 minutes.
I did Monday's 60-minute easy run on Tuesday. My office was still closed, which gave me the flexibility to run in the middle of the day again, with a reduced number of cars. I still had to walk through my neighborhood instead of run, but once I got out of it, I was able to run on clear roads. Once again, this was a little bit dangerous because I was sharing the road with cars, but I saw other people walking/running as well. Further, the roads were wide, so if two cars had to pass each other, there would still be room for me!
Wednesday, 1/27: 30 minutes
By Wednesday, I was finally back on my normal schedule and my office was open. My neighborhood had been plowed thoroughly by this point, so I simply ran in circles around the 0.6-mile loop. Boring and hilly, but safer than venturing out onto the main road during the morning rush hour.
Thursday, 1/28: 6-mile tempo
Thursday was tricky because temperatures got down to 16 overnight, which meant a refreeze of all the water/snow on the ground. Therefore, I had to wait until after work to do my tempo. The good news is that it was a warm and sunny day, so by the time I started my tempo at 4:15pm, everything had melted. I got into work at 7:00am and left at 3:15, which gave me an hour to drive home, change, and drive to the tempo location. Thankfully, my tempo route was ice-free and mostly dry, so I could run without worrying about slipping. I averaged a pace of 7:08 for the six miles, which was very encouraging. Including warm-up and cool-down, I ran 9.5 miles for the day.
Friday, 1/29: 60 minutes
The road outside of my neighborhood was coated in ice in the morning, so I resorted to doing laps around my 0.6-mile neighborhood loop! Very boring (and hilly) but I got it done.
Saturday, 1/30: 17 miles
Because sidewalks were still not clear, Greg and I decided to run the entire long run on neighborhood roads. We drove to this neighborhood (which is also my tempo location) and parked our car at the Starbucks at the end of the neighborhood. We challenged ourselves to run on as many of the neighborhood streets as possible. The result looked like this:
I missed most of Pennerview and all of Midstone! |
It's hard to believe I still have 11 weeks until Boston. I already feel like the training is pretty intense, and it's only going to get more challenging!