Week of December 14, 2008

Sunday: I'll be flying off to Philadelphia later, and the weather was decent, so it was a good day for my long run. It was in the 30s, and the wind fromt the south was very strong. I felt sluggish starting off, maybe because of all the chicken paprikash I had last night, when we'd had the Gajewski's over. What a hoot it is, watching those three kids tear around our house, and watching all of us adults trying to keep up with them. But I digress.. It's been years since I did a long run where I just ran out the door and didn't come back until I had 20 or so miles under my belt. My other long runs have either been with others and where water stops were available, where I keep coming back to the car (Lester Rail Trail) where water is available, where I run several shorter routes from home, but where I keep making pit stops, or just on the mill. Well today I did it the old fashioned way - running and staying out for 3+ hours. And it was a really nice run. Extremely slow (I don't know why at all), but nice. I ran on nice country roads (Sleepy Hollow, Plum Creek, Hamilton, Hamlin), saw a beatiful sunrise, chased a rainbow for 20-30 minutes, and simply loved the run.

Monday: There was a nasty delay for my flight to Philadelphia last night. I arrived at my hotel at nearly 1am. Naturally I didn't feel like running this morning. But as luck would have it, I wound up having much of the afternoon off, so I managed to get a run in at that point. And what a nice run it was. I'm in a different hotel than usual - this one is close to Valley Forge National Park. I found my way over to the park, and then ran around in the beautiful park for a while before heading back. I'll call it 6 fairly slow and extremely hilly miles. Also - interesting weather - a record high here at 66F and real windy.

Tuesday: 16 miles at Valley Forge. See separate post.

Thursday: After all this long, slow distance, I felt the need for speed. And although the weather wasn't the greatest, I didn't want to do it on the mill. Claggett MS track was covered with 3/8 inch of snow, and there was a cold wind. I did 4 x 1600 for an average of 6:57. This is funny - less than a month ago, I averaged 7 minute miles for the 13 miles of a half-marathon. Today 4 almost killed me. Of course the conditions weren't the best, but I think the biggest factor was *my* condition. I even tried a 5th repeat, but that one was slower than 7:30, so I won't even go there. Every time I think my leg/butt/back is getting better, I do something like this and it feels way worse again. Last night's painful traveling didn't help either.

Saturday: Ladd and Chuck joined Amy, Dave and me for our run on the towpath. Mike George picked us up and ran the last 5 with us. We ran on the road for a while but picked up the towpath at Vaughn and then did the usual. It was fun to run with the bunch, but the conditions - ice for several of the towpath miles - were tough. Coming back from Peninsula the pace had picked up. I was having a bit of trouble keeping up, but it got harder to do so once we hit those last few icy miles.