Same Time, Same Channel

Easy Eight on the County Line Road loop.

5:21 am, 29°F, 54% humidity, wind 8-10 SE.

I used this run to clear my head and release my frustrations and stress. Now if I can just carry through with my resolves to be a better person.

Incidentally, I got passed by a runner this morning and I made note of his gait when he was in front of me. He seemed to be taking small steps, keeping his feet under his center of gravity, and maintaining a pretty fast cadence. He was going faster than I was.

AP: 9:30. Splits: 10:04, 9:55, 9:33, 9:26, 9:30, 9:17, 9:19, 9:06.

Easy run on MacArthur Ranch Road loop.

5:09 am, 36° F, 36% humidity, wind 5 SE, partly cloudy, full moon.

I felt really sluggish at the beginning of this run. It took me half the run to really get going.

At one point I was running on the shoulder of the road and noticed the glow of a headlight approaching me from behind and for a split second I thought it was a car even though it wasn't making any noise. I jumped up onto the grass to avoid it. But it turned out to be a bicycle. It just startled me. Later I was nearly hit by a car turning right from a side street onto the street I was running on, but I was able to pull up short and avoid it. The driver mouthed "sorry" or something like that. The driver was a teenage girl. Not long after that, I encountered old man with the stiff arm runner and passed him. That's about all that happened on my run this morning. Except my husband called me a couple of times during my run and I had to take off my glove to answer the phone because I can't slide it open with a glove on. That made me kind of cold. The temperature actually dropped a degree over the course of my run.

I'm still stressed about something.

AP: 9:26. Splits: 10:11, 9:58, 9:48, 9:37, 9:44, 9:18, 9:05, 8:57, 8:49, 8:59.

Slow Snowy Six.

5:01 am, 16°F, 85% humidity, wind 5 NNW, light snow with about 1/2 - 1" of snow on the ground.

I figure that I should try to run outside on the first day of a snow storm because if I'm going to take one treadmill day per snow storm, the second day is usually worse than the first because freshly fallen snow is easier to run on than the icy stuff that's left behind after snow plow and cars have been driving around for a day. Also, it's supposed to be even colder tomorrow than it was this morning.

I'm thinking that I might actually take the day off tomorrow, perish the thought. I was very sluggish today and I'm feeling a little tired and run down. Maybe I need some rest if I'm going to run a decent 5K this Saturday.

In the neighborhood I was making the first tracks on the freshly fallen snow, but on one street a person and two dogs had been there before me this morning. The human tracks were in the middle with dog tracks on either side. It made kind of an interesting pattern in the snow. On another street I followed the tracks of two runners for a long way. I continued to follow their tracks when I turned a corner, and then I found the two runners. It was two women. They were going even slower than I was and so I caught up with them. I said something as I approached them because I needed them to go single-file so I could pass. I really startled one of them, and she kind of slipped moving over, but she didn't fall down. The other one commented that there's never anyone out there with them. I thought of saying that I'm out there every morning, but instead I just apologized for startling them.

I also saw a guy out shoveling his driveway at just a few minutes after 5:00, near the beginning of my run. I thought that showed real dedication, or something.

Thanks to everyone for the support and encouragement they offered me yesterday, and especially to those who listened to my tale of woe. I feel hopeful today, but there is still work to be done.

AP: 10:00. Splits: 10:32, 10:10, 10:05, 9:51, 10:00, 9:24.

I picked the right morning to sleep in and skip my run. We have a light dusting of freshly fallen snow, but the real issue is the temperatures. It was 4°F when I got up this morning.

You know my life is crazy when I can get up at 6:30 and that's sleeping in for 2 hours. But alas, I cannot sleep later than that because the kids have to be fed and gotten off to school and I've got work to do.

Easy run.

5:11 am, 6°F, 59% humidity, wind 8 ESE.

I had clear places to run most of the time by staying on the north side of the road, but I did run into some stretches of ice covered with a thin layer of crusty snow (which helped it not be slippery) in some areas, particularly on roads that ran north/south. I did a couple of loops close to home rather than going on my normal 6 mile route so that I could cut it short if need be. I wore two pairs of pants, two shirts, and a light jacket, with the bottom layer both bottom and top being SmartWool. That kept me plenty warm, maybe even a little too warm when the wind was behind me. I also wore two pairs of gloves, a neck gaitor thing to cover my face, a fleece ear cover thing, and my usual cap. I started out feeling really sluggish but then got feeling better as the run progressed.

AP: 9:36. Splits: 10:13, 9:59, 9:27, 9:30, 9:23, 9:15, with 0.24 at 9:00 pace.

In other news, my oven stopped working last night. It just doesn't warm up. That's a problem I didn't want to deal with right now. I'll just add it to the list. At least the stove is still working.

I'm looking forward to going up to Boulder for the race tomorrow with my fabulous friend Michelle, though I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to actually running the race. I need to get myself psyched up to run fast for 3.1 miles. The faster I run, the sooner it's over. Right?

This was a fun race. Michelle and I drove up to Boulder and had a pretty easy time finding a parking place since we were there for one of the earlier waves. We parked and then walked to the field house, where we picked up our packets and made a pit stop in real indoor bathrooms (yeah!). Then we walked back to my car and pinned on our bibs and stuff, then went for a warm-up run. We got a little bit lost (at least I was kind of lost) on our warm-up run and ended up on the race course. We figured we'd just follow the race course and that would take us back to either the start or the finish. It was kind of funny because the earliest waves had already started and though we didn't really encounter any groups of racers while we were on the course, the course marshals along the way thought we were running the race and cheered us on. When we got almost to the finish, we debated whether to turn off the course and go a different way, and a guy was trying to encourage us and direct us to the finish. So we went in through the field house (the finish was in the field house) and went from there to the start, which was just a block or so away. Because of getting lost, we ended up going a little further on the warm up than we intended and running it a little faster than we intended so that we could get to the start line in time for the start of my race. We made it to the start line 3 minutes before my race started.

I was able to start right up on the start mat because there were not a ton of people in my race. I got going to fast at the start of the race because it was slightly downhill. I ran that first mile in 7:12. The second mile was a little tougher with some gradual uphill and I slowed down and ran that mile in 7:46. For the third mile, I was back on the part of the course that I had run during my warm up and was able to run that mile in 7:21. I ran 6:16 pace for the last .1. Michelle was there at the finish line to cheer me on, which was great. I run so many races alone, it's not often that I have anyone waiting for me at the finish.

There was a woman who passed me right after the start of the race, but then I passed her after a while and I was never passed by a woman for the rest of the race, so I think I was the first woman in my race. However, because of the way these invitational races are set up based on your BolderBoulder finish time, they don't give awards by gender, and I definitely wasn't the first finisher overall.

Also, I lost a pair of nice gloves some time during my race. I had clipped them to a safety pin that was holding my car key to my pants, but they must have fallen off.

I was pretty beat immediately after I finished my race, but there were about 17 minutes until Michelle's race started. So after I caught my breath a little, we made our way out of the field house back to the start line. Michelle warmed up a little on the road where the start line was, but I was tired, so I just waited for her. Some race official questioned why I was running in that wave, because my bib was the wrong color. I explained that I had already run my race and was running with my friend. And I didn't have my timing chip by that point. The race official said that was fine, but that when I got to the finish I should go off to the side and not through the shoot or else they would time me manually.

I tried to let Michelle set the pace for her race, but I think I pushed her to go just a little bitter faster than she might have on her own. I looked for my gloves to see if I could find them as I went back over the course, but I didn't find them. Oh well. It's interesting to me that our splits for Michelle's race follow the same contour as the splits from when I did it alone. That 2nd mile is net uphill, while 1st and 3rd miles are net downhill. Splits for this race were 8:04, 8:40, 8:14, with the last .1 at 7:54. I didn't actually run across the finish line, since I went off to the side once we got in the field house. But I hit the stop button when I saw Michelle cross the line. This was a PR for Michelle!

Just a minute after Michelle and I finished, I thought I saw Nan, and so I chased her down. We visited with her for a little while and Michelle and I picked up our Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuits, and then we all walked out to our cars. Nan had parked in the same lot that we had, so that was convenient.

All in all, it was a very fun morning. Thanks to Nan for coming to see us at the end, and Michelle, if you're reading this, thank you! You're awesome!

**Addendum**

In my race, I was 10th overall out of 31 runners, but I was indeed the first woman in my race, so I awarded myself first in my division even though they didn't track places by sex or age in this race.

Michelle was 24th out of 89 runners in her race, and was the 4th woman. See, she is awesome!