Last Week in Running – January 19, 2018

Week 3 of marathon training, which means there’s 15 weeks to my first marathon, here’s how the week went.

Monday was a dreadmill run. We had about an inch of snow, which wouldn’t have stopped me from running outside if it wasn’t for the sheet of ice we got the prior Saturday combined with laziness and/or idiotic fear that one can be sued for shoveling their sidewalk. 3 miles and 7 strides… which were near the maximum speed of my dreadmill.

Tuesday was a cold run in the park during lunch. The snow was beautiful, and it was half-assedly plowed. However, it was faster and less slippery than expected. I felt good during the run. Unfortunately, the building I work in had no hot water. I was concerned that the hot water was out, as every time I washed my hands after using the restroom I couldn’t get hot water from the faucet. I wanted to believe it had something to do with being on the fourth floor and the hot water heater being in the basement, but after letting the hot water run in the shower long enough to do hamstring stretches and quad stretches, I assumed it was out. Our HR person had already contacted building management (BM), but as of Wednesday morning, they had not responded. BM is apparently just shit.

Wednesday started with my normal weekly weigh in, and the scale said 189.8. This is the first time my weight has been under 190 since I graduated high school around 20 years ago. To add to the day’s happiness, the hot water was fixed in the building so my staff didn’t have to smell me. I have a staff meeting on Wednesday afternoons, and the thought of my staff being shut in a room with me after 3 miles and 7 strides while I drone on about last week’s ‘frivolities’ at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting just stinks. The run was slippery because I ran across the river and plows are foreign to Kentucky.

Thursday was supposed to be a 5 mile M pace run. I ran it at a HM pace because I can’t manage to slow down. The weather was starting to break, though. 6.5 miles including the warm up and cool down.

Friday is normally my long run, but this is a pullback week, so it was half a mile shorter than yesterday when you factor in the warm up and cool down before and after the HM M pace portion. 6 miles. The weather was better, somewhere around the mid-30s, and it was nice to run with long sleeves and shorts.

I looked in Garmin Connect which said my weekly mileage has been going down, and I immediately thought “what the fuck?”.

Then, as I closed out the week at work and realized this might be the calm before the storm. Next week is 32 miles, only 7 miles more than this week’s 25 miles. 3 hours, 40 minutes spent running this week.

Cheers!