ORRRC Week 4: First (real) snow

Sunday's snow

Hello again. It's time for the Weekly Review linkup with Hoho Runs and MissSippiPiddlin. I'm training for about a dozen races, but concentrating on a half on April 9. You can see my schedule here. 

Week of Dec 5-11
Monday       walk to work
Tuesday       4 miles (#5Weeks2TTC)
Wednesday walk to work + 2.5 miles (#5Weeks2TTC)
Thursday    6 miles
Friday         rest 
Saturday     3.1 miles
Sunday        5 miles

Total (running) miles: 20.7 miles
Elevation gain:  361 ft
2016 total:  927 miles

Alysia coached by Molly for Week 2, workout 2. 

Tuesday was an after work #5Weeks2TTC session. Week 2's coach is Molly Huddle and she prescribed a 3 mile threshold (20-30 seconds slower than goal 5k pace), rest, 2 x 400 faster than 5k pace. I felt sluggish, but motivated during this run. My goal pace is 7:50-7:55 and my mile splits were 8:24, 8:27, 8:06. I did both of my 400s on a straight path (1:48) and finished with a short cool down for 4 miles total.

Wednesday: We look like we're wearing lipstick. It was so c-c-c-cold we took this in the car. 

On Wednesday night Alex and I went to the nearby track. Molly's second workout sounded a bit too tough for my tired legs, so I swapped it for the third workout: 10 x 400m faster than 5k pace with a 100m rest. I jogged the first rest, but Alex hates jogging (hurts his shins), so we walked the rest - which worked out because our walks were almost 1:1 with the time it took for the 400s. By the way, he had a cold this week and didn't really feel like running and stayed with me for every 400. I appreciated the company! I got faster as we went and my times were between 1:46 and 1:56 (7:06-7:46 pace) which is in line with my goal. We even dropped into the upper 6s on the last 200m of the final lap. Whew! My legs were super tired after.

First, I had a typo. Ahhh. Second, I'm talking to an Olympian!! Third, Kara Goucher also favorited my tweets.

Thursday was a lovely surprise. In the morning I walked halfway down my street, said, "no way" and turned back to grab my car. It was so cold I couldn't fathom walking to work, let along running after. I decided to take it "easy" and forced myself to get dressed and out the door. It was almost dark, so I wore a reflective jacket, and two blinky lights. It was cold enough to warrant mittens, a face Buff, a hat and ear wrap, but by the end of mile 1 I felt great. It was one of those runs where you want to keep going forever. Around mile 5 it was too dark for me to be running without a headlamp, so I made my way home. Cars could see me, but I could no longer see the cracks and bumps in the sidewalk. Regardless, a fantastic run.

Friday was a rest day. We went out for dinner then watched Blast From the Past. (ha)

Bad photo, great meal.

Alex had a haircut Saturday morning, so I tagged along to run errands. I was on a mission to buy one last thing for my Oiselle secret Santa, but the prices were too high for the limit. Regardless, I had a nice and peppy 3 mile run in "feels like" 13º. I would have continued on, but Alex's haircut didn't take long. Afterwards, we went produce shopping, made an excellent dinner, then went to a beer tasting with a showing of Christmas Vacation.

A little bit of snow, a frozen pond, and a glowing greenhouse.

Sunday was LAZY. I wrapped Christmas presents while watching How to Be Single (meh). After a slow afternoon, I finally ran around 4pm. It was 35º (warmer than Thursday thru Saturday), but there was a bit of half melted snow on the ground. There was also freezing rain, so it was a little slippery. Regardless, I intended to run 3 and ended up with 5 before dark. Not bad.

I didn't have a long run this week, but I think the chilly weather brought out my best. My paces were speedy and I added miles to runs. I hope this continues as I build milage. My training group resumes next week and I'll be in a new pace group. We'll see how it goes. I've enjoyed solo runs!

Do you do speed work on a track or road? 
Did it snow where you live?