1/14-1/20

January 14

5 miles in 45 minutes easy, CR 250. LOTS OF SNOW.

January 15

Busy day with work and woke up feeling like a sickness might be coming on. Opted to run inside on the treadmill; 5 miles easy w/ strides

January 16

Windy day, but I was due for a workout. Felt ok health-wise so I figured I'd give it a go.

I may shift more of my training to 10k type stuff and away from shorter stuff, as the weather is making training for shorter stuff exceedingly impractical (and potentially hazardous to my health).

The idea behind this workout was "intro to 10k pace." The idea was to average goal 10k pace for 30 x 1 minute segments on CR 220 (a flattish road by Salida standards) with 1 minute rest in between. Ice, slush, and packed snow on 95% of the run. 15 mph winds. Screw shoes required (I actually have two pairs of screw shoes now: one for workouts and one for easy days). Averaged 5:52 for the intervals, which I would be super happy with if I could sustain for a 10k this coming May.

Downhill w/ wind at back was easy. Downhill w/ wind in face was ok. Uphill w/ wind at back felt solid. Uphill w/ wind in my face made me want to quit running forever.

The goal is to get Canova-ish on these workouts and try to get as much work as possible at around race pace between now and May. This was just an early intro to those types of workouts. 

15 minute warmup, 10 minute cooldown. 9.6 miles total.

Hard effort.

January 17

Day off. Definitely sore from yesterday.

January 18

18 inches at Monarch 10 miles up the road. One inch at our house. Now that's more like it!

Am ski; pm 5 miles easy w/ a couple of pickups

January  19

The ROADS ARE CLEAR THE ROADS ARE CLEAR!!!$%!

Purpose of this workout was speed endurance plus aerobic stimulus on tired legs. 

2 mile warmup on CR 140, strides, followed by 4 x 800, average 5:27 pace, two minutes rest in between. Felt SUPER sluggish on these. Was hoping to get these closer to 5:20 pace, but the combination of wind, tired legs, and a lack of will to truly hurt made that not happen.

Finished with a 10-mile Doug Bell cool-down on CR 220. Ditched the watch, so no clue on time or pace.

Total of 14.7 miles. Moderate-hard effort.

January 20

5 miles easy w/ CCRC; Jimmy and Kevin, Arkansas hills trails. Good and slow. Didn’t wear screw shoes and almost ended up regretting it. Did a 540 on the ice at one stage. Managed to stay upright but barely.

Wednesday's workout was good; Saturday's was bad. I'm going to chalk up the latter to a lack of turnover because I haven't been doing strides as often as usual and I have yet to go the track this year. 

This week is looking cold and windy, but not much snow predicted. If that's the case, maybe a visit to the track is in order.