Moose Tracks

I did another four miles this morning, bright and early, after another round of shoveling (the final round!). Today, I tried my “moose tracks” for the first time. Moose tracks are a slip-on rubber harness that you place over your shoes. The bottom of the harness has a couple of small metal studs that help with track in the sloppy stuff. The conditions this morning were worse than yesterday, only because this morning’s snow was slushy, although there was more “road” exposed than yesterday morning.

What you just read was written on Sunday, but I never posted it. When I told the peeps at work that I went running outside both Saturday and Sunday, they thought I was nuts. Honestly, it wasnt that bad. I dont know if I would do something like that three weeks away from the marathon, because with my luck, I would slip and go ass-over-teacups and injure myself.

This morning didnt start off well. I wasnt feeling 100% yesterday, so I went to bed at 9:30 last night to recharge the batteries. I have been eating like absolute shit lately. Sunday, Heather made cookies for Hope’s Christmas Concert, and I think I must have consumed a pound of cookie dough, not to mention all of the actual cookies that I ate. I paid for it yesterday.

Anyway, I was up and out of the house at 4:40 am this morning. Of course, as luck would have it, the car wouldnt start. Dead battery. WTF. I fired up Heathers car and gave my car a jump. I blew about 20 minutes or so screwing around with car, but it was no big deal because I had plenty of time still to run once I got to the gym. I decided to bag the spin class this morning because I didnt run yesterday, and I am going to do a mountain bike ride with the guys on Thursday.

I wasnt more than a mile from the house at a traffic light and everything in the car goes dim and the car suddenly dies. So here I am, in the middle of the street at an intersection with a dead car. WTF. Luckily, by some miracle of god, I got the f*cker to turn over, but I kept the heater and the radio off the rest of the way to the gym, and at every stop light, I kept revving the engine to get the amps up and hopefully charge the battery that much quicker.

As bad as my morning started, the rest of my workout was excellent. I ran 7.5 miles at about an 8:50 pace – nothing crazy – just an easy run, but I felt great. The calf felt fine, and my knee felt fine. Outstanding. I have been taking some supplements to help with the joints – glucosomine and fish oil. Maybe its all in my head – the placebo effect – but my knee has been feeling great since I started taking both supplements.

So this week is a bit crazy since its a holiday week. As I had mentioned I decided to skip the spin class this morning, because I needed the mileage and I am riding on Thursday anyway. I am not sure what the training schedule has on tap for this weekend in regards to a long run, but I need to do one in the worst way. Two weeks in and I havent broken 7.5 miles yet. I gave myself a pass for this weekend past. There was no way I was doing a long run in the snowy conditions, and getting to the gym would have been tough and quite frankly, not worth the effort.

I figure that with 7.5 under my belt today, another 4 or 5 tomorrow (tempo run), and a long run on the weekend, I should be around 25 miles. That’s with me riding on Thursday, and not running on Christmas day.

Speaking of long runs, I am thinking about trying to get the long run in here and there during the week, as opposed to the weekend. For a 12 mile run, for example, I would need about an hour and forty-five minutes at a 9:00/ mile pace. If I left the house at 4:45 am, I would still be home by 6:45 am, which would give me plenty of time to get showered and get ready for work. I leave the house to go the gym at 4:45, so running at that time in the morning isnt a problem. It works out for two reasons – a) I cant run 12 miles on a treadmill. I’d take a hostage and b) I save myself the 10-15 minutes I would loose driving to the gym. I think that in theory, I could do a max of 14-15 miles in the morning before work, but I would be up at the ass crack of dawn, but it would only be necessary on the rarest of occasions. I’d have to map a decent course or two before I set out. I can create a course with the Garmin software that came with my GPS, and upload it to the Garmin, and as I am running, the Garmin will tell me where to turn and the distance between each turn, etc. Neat stuff.