February Fun

[OakLeaf]

Yep, heading to Boston one more time. I'm still chasing that goal time I missed this year!

Had another good workout today. Run happy might be a corporate slogan but I can do it without wearing any of their stuff

[rocknrollgirl]

So we had an interesting run yesterday. We have had two small rounds of snow since Saturday. The latest on Mon, 4 more inches. And for some reason, I thought heading to the rail trail yesterday seemed like a good idea. NOT! What a mess. We made it less than a mile before we had to bail and run through a neighborhood. Unfortunately the only way back to the car was through the mess we started on. Got in 45 mins. I have no idea how far we ran. But it was a nice day to be out.

[OakLeaf]

Another big Sunday - ride the hybrid to the yoga studio and park there, do my run, aerial yoga class, ride home. Aerial is such a great complement to running, between the upper body strength and the decompression. Just the perfect thing to do after a run. The only trouble is the running workouts are getting long enough that it's starting to cut into my sleep if I want to get it done before class.

Seventeen today, eight of them at marathon pace. I'm planning on 20 easy next week, even though my training plan recommends against going over 2.5 hours - on the one hand I know what I gain from going longer and I think it's worth it at least once or twice in a training cycle, and on the other hand I've made so many improvements biomechanically that 20 miles definitely doesn't beat me up as badly as it used to.

I've been getting some killer massages lately - we've finally gotten far enough into the three year old injury that now we've got time to work on some of the really old stuff (and its intersection with the more recent injuries). Yowza owie but wow do I notice the difference in my running and yoga.

[rocknrollgirl]

Sounds like your training is going great. We got out yesterday after work for a run. All of the trails are covered as is the rail trail so we had to run on the road which I do not care for. It was 22 degrees and windy and my legs were very heavy. So more of a trudge than a run, but I stuck it out.

It is funny, we went out last week in the morning and it was 9 degrees when we started the run, but we were in the woods. 9 degrees in the woods seemed warmer than 22 degrees on the road. Go figure.

Oh well, just keep trudging on. Trainer workout today

[emily_in_nc]

17 miles, Oak...wow! I can't even imagine!

I finally ran my first 5K on the track today five weeks after my last. I had a really awful cold that just would NOT go away. Lots of coughing, congestion, malaise, and I am still building back speed and endurance, as I have lost a lot. But, I slogged through it and managed a slightly under 10 minute mile pace today. Just glad to be back... Yoga and cycling have been easier to get back to than running.

[rocknrollgirl]

Emily, running is always the hardest to get back. Sorry it took so long for your cold to clear up.


We had a great run yesterday. Normally we do not workout on Friday afternoon, but we missed our Thursday run so there you have it. We decided in spite of the snow to gear up and head out on the trails with our microspikes on. It was a bit tough going on the trails where people had walked, but once we got further into the woods and lost the foot traffic we had a blast. Tough going, but so fun.

At one point I was running along, the sun the was setting through the trees, lighting up the snow and all I could here was my breathing and the bite of my spikes in the snow. Very zen. Made for an unusual Friday Happy Hour, but I am an unusual girl!

I thought my legs would be trashed this morning, but I just got done doing some gooey yoga ( stretchy vs power ) and I am feeling pretty good.

So fun.

[OakLeaf]

RnR, that sounds wonderful!

Emily, glad you're starting to feel better. That's just miserable when a relatively minor illness drags on and on. And yeah, it seems to me that the thing about running is that you have to have a relatively high level of fitness (both general aerobic fitness and running-specific muscular fitness) for ANY running to be easy, and when something happens to drop you below that level, then it's really tough to get it back, because every run is hard.

It's only been since last year, training for my fifth marathon, that anything over 16 miles or so hasn't been automatically a slog. Now, it's a combination of things, partly that I'm keeping my volume higher year round (at least partly related to doing very little cycling), and partly that I've finally done it enough times that it isn't mentally intimidating.

So, knocked out my 20 this morning and felt good. Kept it to a pretty easy pace, but still considerably quicker than I've ever run 20 before - last year my coach had me doing my long runs extra slow, but other than that it's kind of hard to compare, since every other time (besides my first marathon, when I really didn't care about the pace) there's been either hills and/or heat and/or return from injury slowing me down. But anyway, it was good, picked it up the last couple of miles and finished at just a little slower than goal race pace. Followed it up with a nice aerial yoga class again.

Wednesday's supposed to be super hot. Better start hydrating now...