We (Steve and I) are now seven weeks into the training regimen for this year and things are moving along nicely. This week we were privileged enough to do tempo runs which are always a joyous occasion. While the speeds aren't quite as fast as our interval workouts, you also don't get the privilege of a break in between your miles, making it a difficult feat to accomplish, especially this early into the training program. I know these workouts are benefiting me, they are just pushing me to the extremes early as I had taken so much time off during the holidays and are struggling to catch up.
The weather department is not being very runner friendly currently as we are still receiving serious amounts of snow, and cold weather. I can almost taste my first run in the 50 degree weather range coming in the next 30 days (hopefully) and am very excited to be out running in shorts and a short sleeve shirt instead of tights, three shirts, and a balaclava.
Saturday's run was quite eventful, due to commitments throughout the day, I was not able to go for my long run until 10:00 p.m. Unfortunately, due to very inclement weather and time of night, I was not about to go risk my life running on busy streets. The downfall to this decision was I wasn't able to get any hill work for the week. Needless to say, thanks to the large amount of snow and lack of road maintenance it wasn't the fastest run of all time, but fairly peaceful due to the empty streets which welcomed me.
We have one more up week in this four week block before we get to another down week. During our down week we move our training up to four days a week from three. Let's hope this week we can finally get some decent hill work in and really start to push the training to a new level it hasn't experienced yet this year.
It is not very often that you run in the dark late in the day, usually just early in the morning. Did you notice a difference in how you performed between running really early and running really late?
ReplyDeleteThe main difference between the two was my legs weren't stiff late at night as I had been using them all day walking around etc. Early morning runs I start quite stiff and it takes a good mile right now to get in the groove so to speak.
DeleteIt was also a little harder to go out the door ar 10:00 p.m. instead of 5:00 a.m. as I had a long day already and just wanted to sit on my butt and do nothing. I am glad I went though, I feel you learn something when you do a run out of the norm.