My weekend.

01/24/09
Saturday

When I woke up this morning I decided to hit the road for my long run. Usually I plan this on Sunday but I was anxious to get a run outside. It was actully quite warm by winter standards or so it seemed by the 28 degree reading on the thermometer.

I noticed a pretty heavy wind and decided (quite smartly) that I should probably dress a little warmer than the temp calls for. It was a good call as the wind chill was tough and I hit a head wind for over half the run.

I started fairly slow and was considering just an easy run, no hard effort. Problem is that I actually ended up doing a slow run at somewhat high higher effort than I planned.

I decided to go totally un prepared as far as nurousment is concerned as I felt it good to train fatigued. Perhaps get the muscles to begin to learn making fuel from lactose. I didn't eat or drink anything before I went and I sure felt it during the tough part of the run. Perhaps that is why there was a tough part?

The fisrt 3 miles went quite well as the wind was to my side and back during that time. I was intersted in how I would feel on the hills as I have been hill training on the tredmill quite a bit lately.

The first three hills didn't bother me much but also I wasn't running that fast as I was hugging 9:50 pace. Once I turned the corner on Sligo road, I hit a fierce head wind that did nothing but become worse and gust when I crossed the open areas.

In mile six I actully felt as though I wasn't hardly moving and if the wind suddenly stopped I would fall forwad to the ground. Then in mile seven/eight I hit the big long hill. Surprisingly I sped up halfway through the hill which convinced me that the hill training was affecting my run.

In the end of the eight mile run I tagged on another mile for good measure and actually pushed out a pretty decent kick proving that I had something lift in the tank.

Upon my return I noticed a huge and I mean huge ice build up on the roof of the el, so lucky me I got my x-training upper body workout after a quick cup of coffee and breakfast. I then spent 2 hours scraping the snow and breaking ice. I have some pretty tired arms now. I found that a roofing claw bar works the best as an ice breaking tool but a little too much tool for my rain gutters.


9.01 miles @ 1:26:17 (9:34 pace)
average HR 152 Max 167


01/25/09
Sunday

I decided to do an easy run inside today as I still had a chill in my bones from yesterdays romp on the roof with the Iceman. I figured it would be a good time to practice walk / run technique. I set the treadmill at 3.5 - 4 mph and a grade of 4%
This worked quite well and actully brought some life back into my lame muscles.

I worked up a pretty good sweat without pushing my mucsles too hard.


4.2 miles @ 50 minutes (11:54 pace)