Winter Long Run Fun

I was able to do my long run outside this morning. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen or not, as we had a bit of ice on the roads yesterday. So I got up at 6:45 and checked the road out front to see how it looked. All good. Awesome. Apparently I should not be doing any kind of thinking in the mornings as I didn't consider that the country roads where I normally run my route may be a bit more slick than the roads I'm town. But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit.

My intention was to run the reverse of my normal route to shake things up a bit. This would entail running out a bit to the bike trail, running a couple miles there, then doing a loop out on the country roads. Through town I noticed there was some ice on the road, but nothing I couldn't work around. I got to the bike trail and it was a sheet of ice. Ok. There's a 5 mile loop along a path through the wooded area near the bike trail, I'll just run on it for a ways. Yeah,well, the ground was frozen and uneven and I was afraid of breaking a ankle. Not to mention that about 200 yards in, there was a little running water/ice i would have to cross. Ok. I'll just turn around and to back, run through the country and play it by ear. Needless to say, the country roads were a bit icy so I either had to run mostly on the shoulder ( which I did pretty frequently) or work my way around the ice. Either way, the important thing is that I was able to get my long run in outside.

Did I mention it was a balmy 19 degrees out? There was a bit of wind and that made it seem colder. I may have dressed one layer too lightly, but I didn't want to overdo it and be completely wet and miserable.

Overall, I finished the 10 miles with an average pace of 10:52 per mile. Not too bad considering I felt good going into the last mile and ran I at a 9:55 pace. I hope the fact that so far all of my training has been at faster than race pace won't come back to bite me in the end.

That being said, my goal (aside from finishing period) is to run the marathon on 5 hours. Well, actually 4:59. Of faster. I plan on running with the 5 hour pace team and then maybe picking it up the last mile to come in under 5 hours. Of course, all of this is pure speculation at this point.

On a final note, my speedlaces came in the mail yesterday so I was able to put them on my shoes and break them in on my run today. I must say I was very pleased.

Until next time.

BTW, did I fail to mention the gel I took at the 7 mile mark that was more like chewing taffy, and the frozen water in my bottle that I tried to wash it down with? Yeah, I guess I did.