Running With LeMire

4 easy miles on the treadmill this morning before work. Yesterday evening some light rain rolled in followed by freezing temps and a dusting of snow. Thought it would be wiser to run inside on the treadmill instead of taking on the roadways and 32 degree weather with 16 plus mph winds. I dread the treadmill but I got it done and got some good stretching in before I hit the shower then shoveled the driveway.

College Loop: after yesterdays snow storm and colder temps I decided I was going to brave the elements with a maybe fun or terrible run. Temp was 18 degrees with a feels like 9 deegree temp with 4mph winds. Sounds like a great idea doesn't it. Well I also decided it would be a great day to use my YakTacks for the first time. The Yak tracks worked great the problem was 4.5 miles of the route did not have sidewalks cleared and the plowes pushed crusty hard ice chunks onto them as well.  The conditions definitely make this a fast run at all or even a consistant run. Parts of the sidewalks had snow drifts, ice or just 2" of pluffy snow making this run more like a run on a soft beach without the sun and 3 layers less of clothing.  The average pace for this run was 8:59/mi but I got my miles in for the day.  I only saw 1 other person out on this run and for half of the run I was the first person to make tracks thru the snow.

Treadmill Workout: since everything was melthing yesterday I figured the roads would be really icy and I needed to get a good workout in so I hit the treadmill in the basement before work. Started off with a 1 mile warm up at 7 mph then started my 6x400 meter intervals at 10 mph (6min/mi pace) with 400m rest at 7mph. The first interval was the hardest and I was wondering if I would even be able to make it to interval #3 let alone 6. Each interval seemed to get a little easier as I went along which was a good feeling and at #6 I was starting to get tired so I shifted it into a cool-down pace (7 mph) then periodically upped the mph by a few notches to 7.7mph, then 8 mph to end the workout. My legs were starting to get pretty tired so I called the workout at 5.5 miles even though I wanted to make it 6 but I also didn't want to over do it this early on in the training cycle.   

today Nathan had ice skating lessons at 8am which I helped out with then we went out to breakfast then off to Jacob's hockey game on the other side of KC. We came home I changed and was off for a 10 mile run. Weather was sunny 41 degrees and a wind of 7-10 mph. Overall it was a great day to be out running & I ran an average 7:23/mi pace for the first 10 miler of the training cycle. The route included some flat miles and some really hilly miles.