My normal 11-mile route takes me over some railroad tracks once, and then back over them about a half mile later on a different road. I've never been cut off by a train, but I've had some close calls. Today was one of those close calls; as I was about half-way in between the two crossings, I heard the unmistakable toot-toot of an approaching choo-choo. I picked up the pace the best I could. This was 7 miles into my run, which was preceded by eleven miles on the treadmill. The other limiting factor was the cold: it was about five degrees out, and until that moment, I hadn't been moving very fast. As I crossed the tracks, I couldn't even see the approaching train, so it turned out that I'd had plenty of time. The funny thing was that after that quarter-mile uphill sprint, I actually felt better, not worse. It was still a fairly slow run overall, but now I can at least say that I've done my first speedwork for the year.
Most of last week was not conducive to quality running. Of course I was still recovering from Freedom Park, but I did also want to keep my mileage up. The other problem was the weather: the snow hit us very hard virtually every day. Running wise, that meant lots of mill miles. I only ran outside once mid-week, and then again on Saturday with Dave. I did manage to keep that weekly mileage at seventy. I hope to continue to do that through January, even if it means more mill miles than I'd like; I usually can't wait to get off that dang thing after two days or so in a row.
I sure hope the weather is better for rest of the month.
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