Saturday, February 19, 2011

Frigid Saturday run

We were supposed to run for 90 minutes, but I just didn't have it in me. I've had three nights in a row of wretched insomnia; it emerged that both Liz and I had been tempted to cancel by email earlier in the day (it is incredibly wintry and windy out there, especially in contrast to yesterday's balmy weather).

We figured we'd try for 2 x the middle loop, roughly 8 miles, which would do us about the right time if we paced appropriately, but the first loop just seemed monumentally hard: we didn't walk at all, which is good, but the wind was bitter and I was having twinges in my right thigh muscle. We stopped after the first loop to assess the situation, and when we thought about starting up again it seemed clear that I was neither mentally nor physically up for it: even just those couple minutes of standing around in the cold had caused my twingey muscle to protest.

(Missed sleep means that recovery doesn't happen - boot camp/lower body strength stuff plus long runs plus sleep poor in quality and quantity are a bad combination. I will take tomorrow off and see how boot camp feels on Monday...)

(I think we were probably going a bit fast for a long run, too - it's hilly! - we should have been more like 11:00/mi., but it was so cold there was a tendency to hurry!...)

We will do a real 90-minute easy run next weekend, and perhaps hope for better weather. And now I am going to get in a very hot shower - it is freezing coming home on the subway in sweaty running clothes!

4.21mi., 44:31 mins., avg pace 10:34/mi.

1 comment:

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

So the best part about running with other people is that they keep you going when you want to quit early. But a secondarily nice thing is that if both of you think you should call it quits because of something or other, it is probably well justified. Here's hoping for better weather next weekend!