Training for 12/21/10

It’s finally winter! Not that I was looking forward to it at all, but the weather has been so ridiculously cold, it was depressing to think every day, “And it’s not even winter yet.”

Last night, I considered setting my alarm for 2:30 a.m. to see the lunar eclipse (it was the first time since 1638 a lunar eclipse occurred on the same day as the winter solstice) but we didn’t go to bed until after midnight and I had a long tempo run planned for this morning, so I scrapped it. There’ll be another lunar eclipse-winter solstice in 372 years, after all. I need my sleep.

This morning was to be an easy middle distance run of about 7 miles, according to my training plan. But I have decided I really like doing at least one speed workout a week, since everything else about marathon training is so focused solely on endurance. So I’m going to either run a tempo run or sprinkle in some mile pick-ups in my Tuesday morning runs.

Today, I did a mile at about a 10:00/mile pace to warm up. Then I ran the next 5.2 miles at a 7:41/mile pace. It was pretty cold and windy today, but not nearly as bad as it was last Tuesday, so while it was tough running at that pace into the wind today, it wasn’t as hard as it was a week ago. So far, I’d say last Tuesday was the coldest running day we’ve had. Anyway, I ran the final mile at the 10:00/mile pace for a total 7.2 miles in about an hour.