Cross Training: 2 Hours Biking

The cold is moving out of the throat and more into the chest, with a little coughing left behind. I postponed my long run today (until maybe tomorrow), opting for a bike ride instead. I hit the dirt roads near my house and played around dirt mounds at some nearby construction sites. All in all, I spent two hours outside. My legs definitely felt the effort. I can tell that my legs are really getting stronger each week. Let's see how tomorrow goes.

45 Minutes

I've been battling a cold this week--slight sore throat when I'm sleeping and in the morning, with the added bonus of a little coughing. Nuisance though it is, it's not affecting my energy all that much except for the sleep disruptions. Today, I opted out of intervals and just focused on putting in the time. I felt pretty tired at run's end, but my muscles were fine. Maybe the cold is getting the better of me.

9 Miles: W&OD Trail

My legs were pretty sore from skiing on Saturday, so I spent Sunday shopping with my wife, which worked out most of the kinks. Today, I caught up on my long run by putting in 9 miles on the W&OD trail, staring in Purcellville. I waited until later in the day, hoping the temperatures would drop into the lower 30s. What?! That's right. While shopping, I got a cold weather running top and pants (50% off) and was itching to try them out in cold weather. The best I got was upper 30s with occasional dips in the shade. It took about 45 minutes for everything to completely loosen up. Then I had about 40 minutes of comfortable plodding--yes I was taking things slow today. I picked up the pace for the final five minutes and walked fast for about 10 minutes back to the car. I finished the run in 1:28:45 (about 9:55 pace). Let's see how I feel tomorrow.

Cross Training: Skiing

I postponed today's long run for a ski trip to Wintergreen with my friends. We put in about six hours of skiing. My legs were pretty spent by day's end and my toes were a little banged up from hitting the tips of my boots, which I wore for about 8 hours. It was my first trip to Wintergreen and a good one. I'll definitely go back, especially considering its proximity to Charlottesville--a truly great town to hang out in.

1 Hour

Since yesterday's run was a day late, I ran back to back days with an hour run just before lunch. I checked into work a little earlier and worked a little later to fit in a run midday--mostly because temperatures hit the mid-50s, which meant I could wear shorts. I started with a 20 minute warm-up, then a 20 minute tempo run, then finished with 20 minutes easy. It was a beautiful day and a great run, even if the suburban surroundings of condos, office buildings, strip malls, and traffic congested things a bit. My legs felt great today, no hint of soreness.

45 Minutes: Intervals

I woke up early this morning to run intervals in a new housing development not far from my house. Today's agenda included: 13 minute warm-up, six intervals of 1 minute fast then 3 minutes easy, and finally a 14 minute cool-down. I have to say that so far my legs feel great at this point in the plan. I guess I was starting from a better base than I thought. Let's see how things feel after this week.

80 Minutes

I was not looking forward to today's run. My legs were still a little stiff from Thursday and I was seriously contemplating the possibility of an early onset injury caused by the notorious shotgun approach to kicking off a training plan. So I decided to take it SLOW. I spent the first 45 minutes on an easy pace, watching the snow begin to accumulate on the dirt roads and surrounding pastures. Then I turned up a road that I thought would connect me to Cherry Grove, but it turns out I turned left about 10 minutes too soon. So I ended up on completely new footing. At one point I was on a road that had two stream crossings, both of which I attempted, one of which I failed on and sent my right foot plunging into the cold water. On the way back over that same crossing, I caught my pants and shirt on thorns that stopped me part way with my foot balanced precariously on a rock that teetered with my weight. As I unpricked my clothes my right foot slipped (again) into the water. Rather than bother me, it actually freed me up to splash through all the puddles on the way home without worrying about keeping dry, though I do wish I wore my new trail runners, which I will talk about later.

Today was also the trial run of a free tester shoes Mike sent me--UK Gear's PT-03. I was impressed with the shoes construction, which seems way more rugged that most running shoes I've owned. Today, they felt really grippy on the slushy sidewalks and muddy roads--but without the stiffness of trail runner's sole. They were also really comfortable on my foot (narrow with high arches), which is typically hard for me to find. More to come on these shoes as I plan to use them through the half-marathon next month.

(NOTE: I have a pretty straight forward approach to testing stuff for this blog--if I like it, I talk about it; if I hate it, I keep quiet and toss it into the garage.)

1 Hour

Winter is finally re-arriving. I set foot out of the office building as soon as an afternoon meeting let out, to avoid the plummeting temperatures and heavy winds that were coming with sunset. Today was straight forward--20 minutes easy, 20 minutes tempo, 20 minutes easy. Along the way, I ran across a footbridge that crossed a non-major road. It caught my eye a few weeks ago when I saw that on one side of the road there were apartments, but on the other side, nothing except woods. I had to see for myself. When I got to the other side, man oh man was it greener. I spied a small foot path that lead me to a creek with a nice stream of water cascading over rocks (also popular with a young teenage couple). I continued on the path until I suddenly noticed I was in Frying Pan Park. So I stumbled on to a safer way to get to the park without hitting heavily trafficked roads. By run's end, I definitely felt my legs getting sore, with the added bonus of remembering my left achilles and a twinge in my right calf.

45 Minutes

Today I started the first part of a marathon training plan. My plans are for a fall marathon (my first!), but next month there is an off-cycle half-marathon 4 miles from my house that I simply can't pass up, so I'm doing an early mini-cycle (the proper marathon training will start later this year). The problem is I've been more into biking and hiking lately and my running legs may not be up to snuff for a fairly aggressive schedule that has me with a long run of 8 miles in the first week (yes, I know I should have built a base for this). I'm hoping the biking and hiking (and some strength training) were enough to get me going. If not, I guess I learn again that too-much-too-soon spells I-N-J-U-R-Y.

That said, today I ran slow intervals--starting with a 10 minute warm up run, followed by 6 intervals of 1 minute hard to 3 minutes easy, and finishing up with 11 minutes of running (11 to round off to an even 45 minutes). I have to say, I felt great at the end, but it's only Day 1.