Slick Speedwork

Unfortunately, this title is intended to be in the literal and not the figurative sense of the word.

Debbie and I drove through constant rain and snow during our trip to Connecticut yesterday. This made for a somewhat stressful drive. Veronica's part of CT experienced mostly rain. As expected, we're having a great visit and are especially enjoying Grandson Malcolm.

It was clear and in the mid-thirties (I thought) when I started running Saturday morning. Things were still damp from all the rain, but this didn't appear to be a problem as I ran downhill from Veronica and Barry's place, and then up (way up) Daniels Farm Road, past Daniels Farm and Daniels Farm School, to the track. With all the miles I've been doing, more than ever I had a need for speed.

After 36 (24 out and 12 in) on Thursday, along with other long stuff during the week, I haven't been very speedy at all lately. My (current) theory is that running slow doesn't make you slow; not running fast makes you slow. And if you're doing gobs of your miles slowly, that puts you (read: me) squarely in the latter category.

For this attempt at a Something of Substance run, I figured I'd do some mile intervals at the track for the quality part, and then enough other jogging around to call it 14 for the day and 100 for the week. As I hit the track and tried mightily to pick up my speed, I immediately realized that (whoa!) the track was covered with a thin layer of ice. That put a quick damper on thoughts of any real speed.

I tried to go fast anyway, but when the first mile went by at about 7:37 - about a minute slower than I'd have liked - I began to think it would be a Nothing of Substance run. I did three more icy mile repeats anyway, each one faster than the last, but still pretty pathetically pokey. At least I somehow managed to not slip enough to fall completely.

So I ran back down Daniels Farm Road, back up to Veronica and Barry's place, did some half-mile loops around the block, and stopped when I thought I had 14.

Nothing of Substance, but more miles for the week.