Cutting Shapes in the Snow

Time: ~64:22 (actual run time)
Distance: ~10.85 miles (actual run distance)

W/u: 23:14 for 3.11 miles
W/o: 25 x 400 in 66-69 w/ 1 min recovery
C/d: 12:10 for 1.51 miles

Let's get things rolling. I promised to update this bad boy and didn't. Usually I update starting with the oldest run first, but not tonight. I'm going to hit things from the most recent to oldest. Not sure if you will want to read all of the runs, but here it goes.

This afternoon I drove my new Jetta VW Sportwagon TDI, (yup, new owner of a family friendly vehicle, more on that yesterday which comes later) to Providence Day School. I had an important workout to complete before the snow started. Thoughts on this workout were good, but it's a long one that requires a lot of focus.

I warmed up to the Boyce parking lot bathroom of McAlpine and then returned to the high school campus. The legs were feeling good at this point which I usually don't like. I, for some reason, have good workouts when the legs feel bad on the warm up and bad workouts when they feel good. It was chilly this afternoon and I was layered in some Craft gear when I hit the track to change into some flats.

I mentally broke the workout into 5 sections of 5 reps. Basically, I told myself to run a mile and then one extra 400m interval. That was step one, now just repeat 5 times.

Splits:
72.24, (61), 69.37, (60), 67.77, (59), 67.80, (59), 68.95, (60);
68.97, (59), 68.88, (59), 68.86, (69), 67.95, (60), 68.40, (61);
68.64, (59), 67.93, (59), 68.28, (61), 68.71, (60), 67.45, (61);
68.58, (60), 68.14, (60), 68.41, (60), 67.52, (60), 67.88, (60);
68.56, (60), 67.50, (61), 69.00, (60), 66.65, (60), 65.35 for 52:58 total time and roughly 7.5 miles. Average of 68.31.

Check out those first two splits. I thought this was going to be a bad one. After all, my legs felt good on the warm up. Luckily, I was able to dial in the splits that I needed to run by the third interval. I remained smooth and relaxed throughout. In fact, I think if I had someone working out with me, I could have averaged low 67s. The pace never felt all that quick and the rest seemed like an eternity compared to the 800 workout I ran last week.

I had to think that this workout wasn't going to be all that bad. I had 30 more seconds rest, was running half the distance and only had to run 3-4 seconds faster than what I was splitting through the 400 mark. I had the confidence need to run this workout strong and am pleased with the splits.

It started snowing around interval number 12. A light flurry began and it continued to get more serious as the workout progressed. It was fun to see the snow begin to accumulate on the grass while the track remained relatively snowless. That certainly isn't the case anymore by the looks of the parking lot outside.

The Mini covered in snow next to the TDI Sportwagon. Meagan wants to call him Felix.