Sunday, December 27, 2009

A Winter Treat

Today we were blessed with one of those rare warm winter days. When I turned on the TV to check the weather, I couldn't believe my eyes 53 degrees at 7:00 a.m. I had to check a few channels just to make sure I wasn't dreaming.All the local channels confirmed the mild weather. I layed out a cold weather outfit the night before so I had to go upstairs quietly, so not to wake the family, and pull out a pair of shorts and a long-sleeve tech shirt. It's always a treat being able to run in shorts during the winter. We don't get too many of those days so I wanted to take advantage of it and run long.

I chose a particularly hilly course so my legs would be used to the hills of Central Park when I run the Manhattan Half Marathon on January 24. I had no pace in mind and all I knew I wanted to run more than 10 miles. My only mistake was not bringing a GU with me. I had 20oz. of Gatorade with me but a gel might have made to run a little less painful. My quads were hurting from the hills but I expected nothing less.As I got close to home I took a peek at my Garmin and saw that I was a few tenths of a mile short of 13.1. I ran up and down some local streets until I hit 13.1. Stats for today's run: 13.1 in 1:50:08 (8:23/mi). I'm pretty thrilled about this considering I haven't run this far since August 2.

I haven't started working on my training plan for the Pocono Mountain Marathon on May 16. I know I will have a good base since the Manhattan Half is the first official day of my 18 week training cycle. I'll talk about this more later but I know I will have train my legs for a net downhill race. It should be interesting and challenging. Bring it on!

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