Saturday, February 04, 2006
Go long and come back with icicles
This mornings long run began at 8:20 am when the temperature was -24°C with almost no wind and a bright sun. It was the first time this winter that I had to worry about my balaclava. I had almost forgotten how much I dislike the feeling of being gagged by that bloody thing. It does, however, keep the heat in which is a good thing.
In anticipation of the Blackfoot, which is on a hilly course, the goal this morning was to introduce some hills into my long run. Being Winnipeg, that means Garbage Hill, or as a fellow I ran with a few years ago called it, Sunshine Hill. As a sidebar, this is the site of a landfill that was covered over in the 50's and is now a park that straddles a residential neighborhoodd and heavy industriall zone. In a bit of serendipity, I discovered that it is almost exactly 1/2 a mile from bottom, around the loop at the top and down again. My goal in setting out was to do each repeat in about 5:00.
Being a bit of a sucker for punishment (afterall, I am trying this ultra thing) I decided that the hill repeats would be part of my long run, so I ran there, 3.6 miles from home, then did 6 repeats up & down. I've always found that I was good at holding a pace, and this morning, I was within a few seconds of 5:08 for each of the six repeats on the hill. It was a good feeling knowing that I still had that internal pace sense, something I was worried had lapsed with the pathetic training of 2005.
All told, I did 18.5 miles this morning in 3:10:48, and feel good now that I have some food and a latte in me. Still some blistering problems on the left foot, but nothing that I really felt during the run. The icicle forming under my chin on the balaclava reminded me that it was winter.
Now time to relax a bit and prepare to eat some more tonight :-)
D
In anticipation of the Blackfoot, which is on a hilly course, the goal this morning was to introduce some hills into my long run. Being Winnipeg, that means Garbage Hill, or as a fellow I ran with a few years ago called it, Sunshine Hill. As a sidebar, this is the site of a landfill that was covered over in the 50's and is now a park that straddles a residential neighborhoodd and heavy industriall zone. In a bit of serendipity, I discovered that it is almost exactly 1/2 a mile from bottom, around the loop at the top and down again. My goal in setting out was to do each repeat in about 5:00.
Being a bit of a sucker for punishment (afterall, I am trying this ultra thing) I decided that the hill repeats would be part of my long run, so I ran there, 3.6 miles from home, then did 6 repeats up & down. I've always found that I was good at holding a pace, and this morning, I was within a few seconds of 5:08 for each of the six repeats on the hill. It was a good feeling knowing that I still had that internal pace sense, something I was worried had lapsed with the pathetic training of 2005.
All told, I did 18.5 miles this morning in 3:10:48, and feel good now that I have some food and a latte in me. Still some blistering problems on the left foot, but nothing that I really felt during the run. The icicle forming under my chin on the balaclava reminded me that it was winter.
Now time to relax a bit and prepare to eat some more tonight :-)
D
