With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams...

It was a cold (for me) 37* outside this morning, so I had to drag out all my cold gear that I'd been so happy to put away 2 weeks ago.  It looks like we're going to have a week of cold weather, so I'll leave the gloves and fleece out for the week.

Running felt like I was clomping along and looking like an oompa loompa.  Just one of those "off" running days.  I eventually got my groove, but it wasn't until the last mile or so. 

Did my PT for warm up and wore the small knee band.  I didn't have any pain, but I can feel some soreness.  Aleve to the rescue. 

Paces were 10:10, 9:08, 8:53, 8:50, and 8:32 for the last .83 miles.  I had a route I wanted to run today rather than an actual distance (I just wanted over 4.5).  Avg pace was 9:10.  That's faster that I thought it would be.  I didn't check my paces as I ran, I just ran how I was feeling.  I don't feel like it's a bad run for a clompy/stompy Monday morning run.

Today is supposed to be a teacher work day & the kids are supposed to be home, BUT we are all here at the school making up a snow day.  The only consolation is that it's a crummy rainy day outside, so I'm not wishing I was home taking in the beautiful spring sunshine.

Plyo X.  Knee is twanging today.  Not pain, but sore, achey & twangy.

Today is MR's birthday so I spent the morning (after plyo) making lasagna.  That is a valid excuse for being late to work, isn't it?

Speed day and longer run day. I had to get up on time this morning again. 2 days in a row - I feel like a winner in a competition that awards finalists nothing but tiredness.

I did my pt warm ups and headed out for my 8. It's been a long time since I've run 8 miles in the mornings. I ran 1.5 warm up, then 1 mile at an 7:58, 1/2 mile easy run, 1 mile at 8:03, 1/2 mile easy, 1 mile at 8:03, 1/2 mile easy, 1 mile at 7:32, 1 mile easy. Avg pace was 8:40 (if I remember correctly).

The fast paces were tough & I felt like I was working hard. I'm glad I did it & exceeded my goal paces. Since my knee bothered me so much yesterday, I wore the large knee brace- probably a good idea. I didn't have any pain, but the knee is still sore today. Taking Ibuprofen and trying to ice when I can.

My legs (the hamstring areas) are sooo sore today. I guess that p90x plyo put a hurting on me yesterday.

There was a light rain this morning on my run, but I had my ball cap on & it didn't get on my glasses. And that my friends, is my treasure for the day. Running in rain covered glasses in the dark stinks! My were dry today :-)

Well, the snooze button won round one today, so I was 10 minutes late getting up & out.

I ran almost .5 and stopped to stretch out my quads to loosen up my knee a little. It was really dark outside, and I thought I'd passed mile one and couldn't figure out why my mile chime hadn't gone off. I looked at my watch, and I'm not sure what I was/wasn't looking at, but I realized I hadn't started my watch after stretching, so I pushed the start button & then the lap button-

Trouble was, the watch was already on, so I actually turned it off. Didn't realize my mistake until around mile 2 when it didn't go off again. The watch read .96 miles. Oh well. I just ran a little further & waited until the turn around point to re-set the watch and start over.

It was foggy outside, so I think my brain got full of the fog too.

I wanted it to be a slow/recovery run. I have no idea what my pace was for the first 1/2 of the run. I was over a 10mm at the 1/2 mile mark, so I had a good, slow start. The last 2.66 miles were 9:28, 9:33, and 9:09.

Looking forward to sleeping in some day.

Let myself sleep in today!  What a treat :-)

1 hour p90x stretch, and then ab ripper x, because I needed a little adrenaline boost.

I'm like a junkie & need my fix every morning.

Trail run with Wyatt while MR rode his new bike and filled in as water boy.  It was a beautiful day to run, got to see the sun come up and there were some beautiful spots of scenery along the path.

We park at the stop in the middle of the trail.  Good news: there's a port-a-potty there!  We ran 4.5 miles out, turned around & came back to the car for a re-fuel & stretch.  Then we ran out 5 miles and back 4.  The last mile we walked for a cool down.  The last mile is all uphill, so we liked not having to run it at the end :-).

Slow, slow pace, but we did our miles & got our time in.  Had a little nap in the afternoon- so nice.

We are considering changing the plan a little, and instead of running 2 20 mile training runs, just running one of them, taking a week to recover, and running the 26 the next week.  It's our personal marathon, so we can change it if we want to.  I think it may be better to do it this way. Any thoughts?