Cold Day - Hot Run

I must be getting used to the cold. I cycled into Old City yesterday, about 6 miles one way, after work in the dark and the temperatures didn't bother me at all. This morning the temps were in the teens and with essentially the same gear I had on yesterday, minus the thermal shirt, I felt very comfortable through the whole 15 miler I did. It probably also helped that I left an hour later and because of that was able to run in the sun.

Another kick-ass workout. The loop was essentially the same one I've done over the last two Saturdays. Four miles, roughly, to the Art Museum, then 8.5 miles on the Drives. This latter part is marked off by quarter miles. I ran the 4 miles on the West River Drive in 28.26 and the 4 miles on Kelly Drive in 27.16. A nice negative split. As I said last week, it feels real good to be running long runs where this pace feels very comfortable. Next week I wanna extend the distance, perhaps to 17 or 18 miles, and see what kind of pace I can keep. Either this week or next week I also want to start putting tempo work into my Tues/Thurs runs. One of my goals for my fall marathon (I don't know if I'll make this goal for Boston) is to be very comfortable running long at 6 minute pace.

So despite my difficulties getting in workouts this week my overall training picture continues to look good. I feel roughly the same today as I did writing last Saturday's blog, so maybe I shouldn't flip out so much in between. That's an interesting split, the day to day emotions vs. the emotions associated with the big picture. I suppose one practical benefit of this blog is I can gauge these emotions by seeing what I write about.

Speaking of that, I finally found a website that seems to be a central node for running-related blogs (completerunning.com). I knew such a site had to exist, and that there must be a network of running bloggers somewhere, I was surprised it took me this long to find it. I'll spend some time after I finish this entry to see what other running blogs look like.

I see this blog like my running, in that it slowly will evolve. When I started running seriously again in 1996 it took me several years to move out of my self-contained little running world to make connections with the local running community. Looking back I'm surprised how long it took me, and now I consider myself fairly well plugged in (I haven't written about that much as January is still typically a lonely month to run). I see blogs as akin to this. I'll get plugged in, but on my own time. One thing that running has taught me is patience. One reason I write this running blog is because I'd like to have the self-discipline in writing that I do in running. Hopefully the latter will rub off on the former.