01 11 2018 Thresholds in the Cold

Today was thresholds, 10 minutes z2, 10 minutes z4, 10 minutes z2 then cool down. Pretty easy day all in all. Due to the OMFG cold we took the hilly route because it has a windbreak and runs sideways to the north wind that was blowing around 30mph.

Shockingly there was no one else out running today. An 11 degree windchill seems to keep people home a lot.

We did ‘okay’. One thing we dd was backtrack our marathon schedule up by 6 weeks so it matched up with Little Rock Marathon race on March 3rd. So we’re doing the same runs we did 6 weeks ago. This gives us a direct way to check progress.

On this one we had a better average pace by a few seconds. Our z4 pace was 30 seconds slower but this route included a lot of hills, mostly up hill for the z4 section whereas the one back in November had no hills. So while at first glance I was disappointed in the minimal appearing progress once you took the hills into account, I was running on an hour of sleep and no carbs and I was okay with it.

One thing I’m trying to do with this brand new year is look on the brighter side of things. It’s hard, I’m a dyed in the wool pessimist because you’re disappointed less often that way and pleasently surprised more often. But even old dogs can occasionally learn new tricks.