I can hardly believe I'm so lazy that I didn't blog about my misadventures in nordic skiing after our (not one, but) TWO snowstorms. I have Big Boy's old combi skis from his soph & junior years because he got too big for them and got new skis for his senior year. If my feet were any smaller, they wouldn't work, but as luck would have it, I have my very own skis. I'd gotten boots and poles from the ski sale back in, what, October?
The park half a mile from the house has a golf course that is ideal for nordic skiing if you really suck at it and need an über-easy course. The boys prefer to ski at Como Park, but the hills are too hard for me and I get crabby. So, on the "easy" home field advantage course, I figure I skied about 29 miles that first week and 11 miles the second week. Combined with running 18 miles the first week and 33 the second, it was a very busy couple of weeks. The cross training aspect really helped, though. My 11 mile long run that second week felt really easy. It was also the first shorts run of the year - it was in the high 40s and sunny.
This past week was a cut back week, so just the usual 5 days of running, but easy 5 milers each time. Due to the heinous day light "savings" time, it is now pitch black before work, so I had to run inside on the TM. Someone wrote an editorial to the paper expressing my sentiments exactly, "For those of us who get up at 5:30 a.m., I'd like to know when we get that extra daylight that this time change is supposed to provide."
I ran the Human Race 8K yesterday and got a PR of 40:05 (8:03 pace). I really wanted to break 40:00, but between the wind and my taking it easy on the first half mile, there wasn't really much chance. We'll see about next year!
So, what with racing yesterday, I felt kind of creaky this morning when I was out for 6 with the pooch and my new headlamp. I waited until after 6:30 to leave, which was pretty good as far as running in the dark goes (about 20 min of dark, followed by 25 min of twilight, then sunrise about 10 min before I finished the run), but it was dreadful for arriving at work in a timely fashion. I have 5 scheduled for tomorrow, so I'll leave a bit earlier and get myself to work on time!
Wednesday is supposed to be my first "speed" workout since rehabbing my knee. According to my Runner's World smart coach training schedule, I'm supposed to do speedwork at an 8:07 pace. Now does that make sense if I just raced an 8K at an 8:03 pace? Maybe I'd better go and rework the numbers a little bit. OK, 7:52 for 2X1600 with 800 recovery in between. I might swap that for next week's tempo run, which is supposed to be 1 mile warm up, 5 miles @ 8:30, and a mile cool down. That sounds like a more friendly workout.
I am nothing if not a slacker.
