I woke up late, yet again, and didn't get out the door until 7:45AM. This time I made sure I correctly WALKED the dog and ATE the breakfast. Doing that didn't give me enough time to jog the 2+ miles to the starting line as my warm up, so I opted for a different warm up. I drove my car to the start.
My legs were still tight from last night's late treadmill run, so I knew I had to be careful in the close to zero degree temps this morning. I told Fil that he would probably have some company during today's run.
Of course, once the race got underway a little after 8AM, my adrenaline kicked in and I took off with John Rheaume and Dave Corbett. Dave is running the Boston Prep 16 Miler tomorrow, so he went easy on me today.
Andy C. made a quick cameo in jest, but he too went back to his usual tempo pace for the rest of the run.
The weather wasn't actually that bad even though the temps were about the same this morning as they were last week when I couldn't feel my fingers for a good 15 minutes AFTER the run.
This was due partly to the fact that there was hardly any wind, therefore no windchill, and partly because I used some kick-ass disposable hand-warmers for the first time this season. I'm writing this 16 hours after the run and the hand-warmers are still warm to the touch!
Dave, John, and I stayed together through the first 2 miles and averaged above a 6 minute pace, which was considerably slower than the previous two weeks for me.
I stayed right on his tail and was only about 20 yards behind him at 2.5. I knew I could catch him, and when I did at mile 3, I just tucked right in behind him. He gave a slight burst of speed and a look of shock that I was still with him.
I considered passing him, but I knew that he didn't give full effort today, otherwise he would have easily beaten me. Dave was the better runner this morning, so I backed off and followed him into the finish chute for second place with a time of 18:56.
(Good Luck Tomorrow, Dave!)
The bulk of my mileage for today actually came after the "race" when I headed over to Catamount Rd with Fil and James. We jogged the two miles to the Hill, and Fil followed us up for the first interval before heading back to the high school. Fil is running BP16 too.
James and I continued on with the rest of the hill workout with two more Catamount climbs before we called it a day ourselves and headed back to the school.
I actually needed 12 miles today to stay at 60 for the final time during this training cycle (65 to 70 next week). I only had 10 miles on the day by the time we were almost back to the school (missed pre-race warm up run), so I bade James farewell and did part of the Fudge loop in reverse in order to get in at least another two miles.
I'm a complete moron when I run a course without the usual course markers, especially in reverse, so I ended up missing a turn and tacked on an extra mile to the Fudge loop.
I finished the day with 13.1 miles, no worse for the wear, and actually feeling pretty good.
In the end, this turned out to be one of my best workouts, which incorporated tempo, hill, and distance.
Now to go find that basement at the Alamo...
0 comments:
Post a Comment