Catching Up

Took a quick trip to Austin again this week, which put a hitch in my logging online. So let's recap this week's runs, shall we?

My Monday evening run with the wife was sabotaged by having to work past 7 p.m., so we ran Tuesday night instead. She wasn't feeling the best and managed 5 miles while I did a couple of strides to end up at 5.4 miles. Guess we should get used to running in the dark. The Wife is running a 10k next weekend and I enjoy encouraging her by running together once a week. The Monday (or Tuesday in this case) is perfect since it's supposed to be an easy recovery run for me and a long run for her.

Wednesday I flew to Austin with co-workers. I'd checked the forecast on Tuesday and it proclaimed sunny and in the mid-60's for Wednesday. I was a little surprised when we landed since light rain was falling, the wind was pretty breezy, and the sun was nowhere to be found. It wasn't horrible, though, and since I'd packed my running gear I headed out. Normally at mid-afternoon there are thousands of people out on the trails, but this time maybe a hundred or so was all I saw. I ran 6 miles, with a 4-mile tempo run at 7:30/pace sandwiched between a mile warmup and mile cooldown. The weather in Kansas City was actually better than in Texas that day. Weird, but I still got in my run. And I still like running in Austin.

Today's run was the longest in ages, at least to my memory. Seems like I keep getting up to 15 miles and then dropping back, so today's 18-miler was key. I finished strong, even though I did feel a little bit of a letdown between 15 and 16. I think that was part of 'the wall' I needed to break through to make sure I'm ready for the race next month. The only barrier I have left is next week's 20-miler. All in all today's run went well. I thought I'd messed up since I didn't have any gel or other energy packs, but I found a package in the pantry of energy shot blocks. Guess they were either bought by The Wife or came from one of her races since I haven't bought anything like them before. They were okay but dang, they seem like they're big enough for a horse. I'm guessing other people probably take them in bites.

Today was also the first day I had to wear the cold weather running gear. The temperature when I left was exactly 32 degrees, so I wore long pants, mittens, a long technical shirt with a cotton race t-shirt over it, and my headband. The first mile I thought I probably should have worn my tights but after that it was okay, so probably just as well I hadn't thrown them on under my pants. Thankfully the breeze was non-existent today. In fact, the weather seemed to be much like the Memphis race last year, both temperature and breeze-wise. If these were the conditions for next month's race I'd be happy with that. Once again I strapped on the drink belt, this time at mile 9, along with the iPod. My calves are a little sore and tightened up some during the second half of the run, but nothing like the Columbia and Memphis races last year. I've read some articles stating that this could be one of the coldest winters we've had in a while due to La Nina (El Nino's colder sister), but if possible I'd like to request that plunging temperatures hold off until after the race. I know that's selfish, but sometime that's just how it is when you're a runner and the weather is involved.