Last Week in Running: February 3, 2019 – Polar Vortex Edition

I’ve signed up for the Glass City Marathon in Toledo, Ohio, and I’m on week 5 of 18 in my slightly modified Pfitz 18/55 plan. The marathon is on April 28, 2019.  This is a pull-back week in the plan, which couldn’t have come at a better time. The week is forecasted to have a polar vortex hit on Wednesday so I expect some dreadmill running this week.

Monday: 8 miles + 10 x 100m strides. Since it was cold in the morning but nice out at lunchtime, I ran at East Fork at lunch. It was much faster than I anticipated, despite some winds. The drawback for this route was that my strides were uphill… OTOH, I made a PR on that uphill stretch. Overall, 9.5 miles in 1:20:58 (8:31 min/mile pace).

Monday evening I finished Eat & Run, which is a nice introspective into the development of Scott Jurek.

Tuesday: Recovery 5 miles. Yeaahh, about that recovery, it was 16F/4F wind chill factor and I tried to go slow but also wanted to get done. Wore my heart rate monitor (I wish I wore it for Monday’s run too), I don’t know if it works with non-GPS mode, but I’m going to try it tomorrow when schools are closed due to -20+ (actually, that should be a ‘-‘ after that!). 5 miles in 41:44 (8:20 min/mile pace).

I ordered a Garmin footpod last week from some shitty Amazon reseller that will likely be getting a negative review, since the footpod won’t be here until after tomorrow’s planned dreadmill run. I would have rather had it earlier in the week since I think there’s some calibration that will need to be done.

Not sure why there was a claimed 5-day delay in shipping, but a 3-4 day shipping time would have been okay, a 5 day delay is not at all okay.

Wednesday: 8 miles. Yeah, on the dreadmill. It was boring looking at the wall, and the footpod didn’t arrive until way later. 8.01 in 1:09:55 (8:44 min/mile pace).

Thursday: Recovery 4 miles. It’s still cold, so I ran on the dreadmill again. I used the footpod, which was more of a curse than a blessing since it is uncalibrated. It said I went 4.01 in 38:37 for a 9:43 min/mile pace, but I felt like I was going faster. Of course. I’m going to calibrate it when I can.

Friday/Saturday: I was supposed to run 12 miles, but instead I carried drywall into my basement. 16 sheets on Friday (with no help) and 14 sheets on Saturday (with help).

Overall, that’s 26.5 miles for the week. January was 175 miles total of a planned 185 miles. February’s plan involved 197 miles, but I’m starting it missing a 12 mile run so there’s that.