Nurse on the Run

Can you believe that February is half over??  This month is flying by and I can’t say I mind since I’m ready for spring and especially summer!  We got more snow here in Pennsylvania yesterday, but luckily the ground was warm enough that it didn’t stick on the roads.  Giant trucks were here yesterday and today so they cleared out giant piles of snow so people can park on the side of the road agan…yay!  Rumor has it we’re supposed to get more snow next week…I don’t know how they predict this a week in advance, but I don’t like it!  I miss the days of laying on the deck and reading all morning…those were the days!

more snow runs

Since I’m going to Durham this weekend to visit Sara, Sarah, and Allie, I’ve been trying to squeeze in my runs so I’m not spending the entire weekend running!  The big problem is the long run, as I’m supposed to do 17 miles!  I’m hoping to get it in before work tomorrow, which will make for a long day at work but a more relaxing weekend.  I’ll just have to pump up the caffeine and hope for a non-crazy day!

I did NOT feel like doing any sort of quality run on Monday, so I claimed it as a recovery day and ran four miles.  Easy, nothing to write home about…except it was the same loop I had been doing my sixteen miles on, and I was tired of running it!  I hope the snow melts soon so I can get back to my running trail.

Monday, February 15
4.04 miles in 31:09, avg pace of 7:42

Okay, maybe that’s not so much recovery pace.  Oops?

Tuesday I woke up to snow, and I immediately started kicking myself for not doing my tempo run on Monday.  Five mile tempo run on an inch of snow?  That doesn’t sound like fun to me, not does it sound like it would be productive with all the slipping and sliding going on.  I decided I’d do a five mile easy run and continue to move around my training schedule…I wasn’t happy about it, but Mother Nature and I are not friends right now.  Well, once I got out, I realized that the roads must have been warm enough that they weren’t accumulating snow, so the roads were perfectly clear!  After doing math in my head to determine if I would be able to squeeze in ten miles before work, I decided it was tempo time.

New plan:  Ten miles with five at tempo pace.  Let’s see how that worked out:

Tuesday, February 16
10.07 miles in 1:12:51, avg pace of 7:14

Warm up: 
2.53 miles in 20:00, avg pace of 7:54

Tempo:
5.01 miles in 33:48, avg pace of 6:45

Mile 1:  6:41.  This mile started downhill, followed by a gradual uphill, and I think I overcompensated by going a bit too fast…felt okay though, just cruising along.  (Did I just say that about a 6:41 pace?  Crazy!)

Mile 2:  6:47.  Longggg gradual uphill.  Much better than a steep uphill.  Legs still chugging along.

Mile 3:  6:31.  Well, let’s just say that downhill with the wind at your back makes this pace seem easy.  I was flying along and didn’t feel a thing.  Maybe everything should be downhill…

Mile 4:  7:01.  Going from downhill with the wind at your back to a steep uphill into the wind is ROUGH.  This mile was infinitely more difficult than the 6:31 mile I just ran!  I’ve always found the second to last mile/lap/repeat to be the hardest, and this was a difficult one to push through.  I survived…barely.

Mile 5:  6:45.  One more mile!  That’s all I kept telling myself and it worked.  The last little bit was a steep hill that caused some burning in my legs, but with a tenth of a mile to go, it’s not too hard to get through.  Tempo run, done!

Cool Down:
2.52 miles in 19:03, avg pace of 7:33

Well, that’s not quite a cool down pace at all, but it felt much slower than 6:45 and I was pushing it on leaving for work on time.  No worries, after a power shower and shoveling down some pad thai, I made it with seconds to spare.  Awesome run…check!

I’m taking Friday off for a long weekend in North Carolina (yay!), so my week is half over…every week should be a four day work week!