Training Log - Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Two-a-days, I think that's what it's called when you do two workouts a day. When I left for my recovery run this morning at 6:30 AM, the temperatures were in the low 30s and on the local news channel the weatherman was talking about a slight dusting of snow. As I turned onto Holmes Avenue, rain started to hit my face. This made for a very cold faceduring my run. Thankfully, the rain stopped after about a mileand, instead, turned to snow. Nice, now my face was starting to get numb. I was recently reminded of running "naked" when I was reading someone else's blog. I hadn't done that in over two years, ever since I received my first Garmin Forerunner for my birthday. I admit, as I have stated before, I am a gear junkie. Wearing my Garmin and checking my pace every ten seconds is compulsory, so running naked was worth a try, especially considering that I was trying to start my taper for Rocky Raccoon. While I still wore my Garmin, I did force myself not to look at all until I hit the stop button at the end of my 4.5 mile run. I had opted to wear long running tights, a long sleeve tech shirt and a rain jacket plus gloves and a hat. Maybe a little overdressed after all.

I decided to go for another 4.5 miler after work, but because the weather was still kind of unpleasant, I chose to make use of my gym membership and run on the treadmill. I ran negative splits for the first time n a long time, which is so easy to do on the treadmill. You have so much control over your pace. I might start doing regular speedwork on the treadmill, if I can handle the monotony. I was lucky to find a treasdmill that wasn't already occupied. There were still lots of new year's resolution folks. Because of the snow storms we had in early January, many hadn't started their resolutions to get fit until the middle of January. Not to sound too mean, but that's probably why many of them are still around. Normally, the gym starts to empty out again in late January. I had a pretty good run finishing the last mile and a half at 7:30 minute per mile pace. Not really speedwork just yet, but a step in the right direction.