Training Log - Tuesday February 9, 2010

I had originally planned to take off this morning at 5:15AM and run 4 miles to Richard's house, return to my house and pick up my fiancé for a 4.3 mile look around UAH while Richard would continue his run on to his office. However, when I woke up at 4:45AM to get ready, I had received a text from Rich stating that he was sick and would try to get over it with some extra sleep. He planned to join me after work for some hill training. Well, when 4 o'clock came around, Richard had texted me again to let me know he was out sick indefinitely. So what was I to do? Earlier that day, I also received the heads up from my better half that she was in no mood to run today either. That left me. The weather wasn't very inviting either. Temperatures had dropped significantly over the afternoon to just below freezing and the wind made it even worse. So much so that I was literally cussing out loud to the wind (or rather myself) every time I made that turn into the wind on my loop around the university. As I plodded along, it got darker and darker and colder and colder. The wind felt like it was cutting my face. But I was out here now and I wanted to log my mileage as planned. I am a sucker for stats and mileage and I was going to stick to my plan of 10 miles minimum for today. I wanted to make sure to match or exceed last week's daily mileage to stay on track with my training. During this run, I managed to listen to 3 entire podcasts related to running, Ashland Dave's "Running in the Center of the Universe", Chad W. & J. Peter H.'s "Running the Distance" and last but not least Chris Russell's "RunRunLive 2.0". I originally tried out about 25 different running related podcasts and found that about 10 of those kept my interest. The three listed here are part of that select group. I am sure I will mention the other seven in my future blogs. One thing I've found while listening to these podcasts is that I am not as special as I thought I was. Actually, I am quite average. Why do I now think that I am average? Well, while listening to these podcasts, I always find one thing (quite often the major topic of the conversation) that I have in common with one of the authors, hosts or speakers. Whether it is the 10 extra pounds I can't seem to lose even though I run almost 60 miles a week now, or the urge to indulge in massive amounts of food after running, or the love hate relationship with running, and on and on, the similarities are endless.  Anyway, this was my first solo run in over a month and I have found these running podcasts to be welcome entertainment, even stimulating. I find that listening to them on a low level while running allows me to still be aware of my environment, be it cars or the occasional dog chasing after me.
I am still wussing out on my speed and hill work but I will integrate it back into my training soon. Physically, I felt pretty good on tonight's run. No twitches or pains. I managed to run almost 13 miles. Not too bad for a Tuesday evening run. Tomorrow's temps are even less promising than today. 26 degrees with wind chills making it feel like 14 degrees. The joys of running in the winter. I know I sound whiny but this is Alabama, the Deep South, it is not supposed to be cold here.