I didn't forget. Not completely anyway...
Challenge #1 of writing a blog: writing in it consistently. Challenge #2: Writing something interesting. Though that's not quite as much a challenge as it may seem; I'm not really writing for you, I'm writing for me. Who are you again?
Turns out last week was the worst snow Portland has had in forty years. Not much of a comfort, but it is some. Of course, I could only capitulate a day at at time; I ran again on the 23rd. With snow, it was bad, but not as bad as it would be, and I was able to pull of a couple loops of Duck Pond. The footing was pretty treacherous. Not as bad as the 24th though. Christmas Eve was the beginning of the thaw, which meant snow that was frustrating but at least consistent and predictable started to melt into much more hazardous snowy slush. I ran, but a route that is a little over four miles and usually takes me a little over twenty minutes took me more than half an hour. If it were possible to abort before then I would have. Suffice to say I did not run on Christmas, and you simply cannot make me feel bad about it. If you ran on Christmas, you are not dedicated. You are simply stupid.
But of course, I'm kind of stupid too (who isn't who runs like this? C'mon, we're crazy). So the madness resumed on the 26th, another run that usually would take about forty, and this time took more than fifty. But by then, we were past the worst. The 27th was the same run, more than five minutes faster due purely to improved footing, and the 28th was almost completely back to normal. By the 29th my whole run was on wet pavement.
The test was then the 30th, a hard workout, meant to be on the trails or roads, but which I ended up doing on the track, because while I know of an 800m loop, I don't know of a 1k loop.
This workout struck me as one that would be a challenge even without a sketchy week of training preceding it; having gone through that week, I had my doubts I'd be able to keep on pace.
Surprisingly, I was only on pace for one interval, and was under pace for all the others. I don't know if I simply didn't lose any fitness, or if it just wasn't as hard as I thought it would be...either way, it was a nice ego boost.
Apparently we aren't done with the winter weather though: it snowed again the night of the 1st. The fact that it snowed at all is pretty amazing, but given that it was well above freezing AND the ground was absolutely saturated after strong rains all day AND the snow STUCK, you gotta wonder what else this winter has in store...
Tuesday, 12/23-46:43 easy (snow, Hard Workout scheduled)
Wednesday, 12/24-31:08 easy (Cedar Park loop, snow, slush, terrible footing, 1 hr easy scheduled)
Thursday 12/25-REST (4 mile tempo scheduled)
Friday, 12/26-51:10 easy (Duck Pond x2, snow, slush, terrible footing, 1 hr easy scheduled)
Saturday, 12/27-46:25 easy (Duck Pond x2, snow, slush, but better footing, Hill Workout scheduled)
Sunday, 12/28-57:38 easy (Nike x2, mostly wet pavement, Long Run scheduled)
Monday, 12/29-59:04 (Sunset loop, wet pavement, as scheduled)
Tuesday, 12/30-Hard Workout:
10 min warmup
5x1k w/1 min rest btw @ 3:05-3:08
jog 5 min
5x800m w/1 min rest btw @ 2:26-2:28
Actual: 3:01, 3:03, 3:03, 3:04, 3:01
2:28, 2:23, 2:24, 2:23, 2:22
On the track, but regular flats, no spikes.
Wednesday, 12/31-~46 min easy (Duck pond x2)
Thursday, 1/1-REST
Friday, 1/2-1:01:02 easy (Nike x2)
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