Let It Snow. Again.

Looks cool, but getting old...

Another day of the white stuff, this time combined with a little freezing rain.  Couldn’t get the snow blower started for the second consecutive winter blast, forgot how much it sucked to shovel the driveway.  Wish the kids would get bigger quick….

Luckily yesterday was dry, although bitter.  Got to spin in the morning, then donned the anti-exposure stuff and hit the track out at the high school around lunch time.  Most of the track was clear, and as luck would have it the one turn that still was cluttered with snow and ice was the corner dead into the blustery wind.  Since I had planned on 300’s anyway, I didn’t even have to cheat by adjusting my start to avoid the dreaded headwind – the snow made it ‘legal’.  While warming up I debated what I was going to do, kicked around 10x in my head but did the math and opted for 8×300 with a running recovery – similar to the Forde Fours I did a couple of weeks ago, only this time I went with a 500m recovery to start each interval at the same point.  Was shooting for race pace, which in a dream world would be 65 second quarters or about 49 second 300’s.  Ran the recovery at LSD pace, about 7:30 mile pace.

Aside from #2 which somehow was around 52, ended up between 48.0 – 49.5 on every one.  Pace was comfortably challenging, which was my goal.  Wore the GPS, the heart rate download was eerily repetitive – graph looked like a perfect heartbeat, with spikes to 168 every 2:30 or so.  Quads started to feel the speed a little bit towards the end, finished without any issues though (aside from my face and feet loosing sensation and my water bottle starting to turn to slush).  GPS also told me that even with the rest factored in, the 4 mile workout was coming in right around 6:03/mile.  A little speed and a little strength all wrapped into one – what could be better?!?  Checked the weather after getting home, 26˚F with a windchill of 16˚F.  Ouch.  As much as I love running for Greater Philly, how nice would it be to be a member of the Key West Track Club…..

Was planning on a pool run today anyway, the overnight storm just made me look smart.  40 minutes, nothing fancy.  Didn’t even speed things up much like I usually do.  Just wanted something easy, especially after yesterday.  I wore shoes (racing flats) like I sometimes do, feet started hurting after about 20 minutes so I kicked them off and ran the remainder barefoot and without issue.  Massaged afterwards, paying particular attention to the quads after yesterday’s soreness.  No lingering affects though which is a good thing.

Plan for tomorrow is to spin in the morning, then do some short easy intervals in the pool – nothing crazy, probably 8-12 x 30 secs or so.  May go out to Middletown to the HydroWorx center if I have the chance, if not I will stay local.  Thursday will probably be a rest day, then on the road to Ithaca Friday afternoon.  Got an email today that had the names of the rest of the field for Saturday’s race, a bunch of good milers will be toeing the line alongside me.  I feel that whoever is going to win is going to have to run a great time.  Unlike 5th Avenue when I knew I was hoping to pull a rabbit out of the hat, this time I feel I am in the kind of shape that will allow me to go into the race with the confidence that I can hold my own – no miracles required.  ‘Feel this…’, ‘Hope that…’, blah blah blah – the beauty of track is things always get decided on the oval, so enough prognosticating…..let’s get it on!