Same Time, Same Channel

On the treadmill, mostly at 10:00 pace, but some of it a little slower and some of it a little faster.

Oh the weather outside is frightful. It was -9°F this morning, so I opted for the treadmill. I thought it would be foolhardy to run outside for an hour.

I spent some time yesterday downloading a couple of audio books from the local library's website and putting them on my mp3 player. I started listening to The Good Earth this morning. I remember hearing my mom mention the book when I was a kid and I've never read it, so I thought I'd give it a try. Listening to the book helped to pass the time on the treadmill, but I was still watching the clock and waiting for it to be over. Once it got light outside it was kind of fun to see the houses across the street all covered in snow with smoke coming out of all of the chimney pipe things. I'm sure there weren't real fires in the houses, just exhaust from the furnaces, but it looked kind of cool.

I didn't want my elementary school kids to stand at the bus stop too long, so I was going to keep them in the house a little longer than normal and send them to the bus stop just in time. But we cut it too close and they missed the bus so I had to drive them to school. I guess I better send them out a couple of minutes earlier tomorrow.

On the treadmill again today and I went a little faster than yesterday, with more of it at 9:14 pace and about 5 minutes at 8:56 pace.

It turns out that our car is totaled, and so we have to buy a new car. We don't know yet how much we're going to get from the insurance company for the old car. I really didn't want to buy a new car right now, but oh well.

Also, it turns out I dropped my cell phone in the driveway last night when I was getting stuff out of the trunk of the car. It sat in the driveway over night and I might or might not have run over it this morning when I drove to work to run on the treadmill. It doesn't appear to be crushed, but it's not working.

I've just got all kinds of hassles and expenses that I didn't want right now.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:16/mile.

Outside temp: 17°F.

I finally got back outside. But I have been enjoying listening to The Good Earth while running on the treadmill the last couple of days and I wanted to listen to it on my run today, so I brought along my Sansa and wore my headphones even though the headphones are kind of uncomfortable with all of the cold weather gear. I put the Sansa on my arm before I put my outer jacket on, and so then I couldn't access it to change the volume during the run, which was unfortunate, because I needed it a little louder once I got out into the traffic. Still, I could hear it, but I had to focus on listening and as a result didn't pay a whole lot of attention to my running. I did try to watch out for patches of ice and for cars. What I'm trying to say is that the run passed quickly and relatively painlessly because I was engrossed in the book.

I think we're going to have to go car shopping tonight. I'm not excited about it at all.

Also, I went to the Spring store yesterday and swapped out my old phone for a new one, but the new one doesn't work. I've got to go back there again today. What a hassle.

Easy run that kind of turned into a tempo run. Average pace: 9:55/mile.

Outside temp: 16°F

I ran outside while listening to The Good Earth once again, which took my mind off of both the cold and my pace. However, after about three miles, I realized that I was running quite slowly due to lack of attention to my pace, so I picked it up a bit and ran the rest a little faster. My splits were 10:18, 10:24, 10:44 (notice how I was getting slower), 9:44, 9:17, 9:09.

I've got a working cell phone now and we've got the paper work from the insurance company to settle this car thing. We did a very little car shopping last night. We're interested in the Toyota Matrix. My husband plays the string bass and we need a car that can carry a bass. I think this car can do it, but is still a small, economical car. I don't want to buy a bigger car than I have to. My husband drives a long way to and from work and we need a car that gets good gas mileage.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:07/mile.

Outside temp: 32°F, with a thin layer of snow nearly everywhere, and some slick spots, particularly when crossing streets where cars have been driving.

To look at my split times (10:41, 11:00, 10:39, 9:57, 9:19, 9:13), you would think that I started pushing the pace after the third mile. But it was actually a fairly consistent effort. The elevation profile for the route I ran looks like an upside down V. It's mostly uphill for the first half, and then mostly downhill for the second half.

As I've mentioned before, I've been listening to The Good Earth during my runs recently. This book takes place in China before communism and there is some discussion now and then of binding the girls' and womens' feet. I was thinking about how Chinese society put such high value on small feet for woman and the lengths they went to achieve that, but then I realized that we also value small feet for woman to a lesser extent in Western society. Last time I bought running shoes, the guy brought out a pair for me to try on. After I tried them on and liked them he revealed that he hadn't wanted to tell me before because it might prejudice me, but they were a wide width. I thought that was kind of silly. I just wanted shoes that fit right and felt good, especially since they were running shoes. I didn't care that they were a wide width.

I'll probably finish the book tomorrow. I've got to decide where I'm going to run tomorrow. I'm going to have to start early and I'll be pressed for time because I've got to run a final choir practice for our choir Christmas program tomorrow morning. (The practice is tomorrow morning, the Christmas program is Sunday morning.) I suppose I could run in the afternoon, but I know I'll have errands to run and things to do then. It'll be better if I can get the run done before the choir practice.

Long run. Average pace: 10:18 mile.

Outside temp: 14°F

This was kind of a miserable run. I felt kind of crummy the whole time. I thought about cutting it short, but didn't. There was a thin dusting of snow almost everywhere, but the wind had blown it away in some places. I could see ice forming on the edge of my hat, and my gatorade froze. I've got a fuel belt with four little bottles, and I couldn't get the one with gatorade open, nor one of the water ones. Ice had formed around the opening, keeping them from opening. I did manage to get another one of the water ones opened. I unscrewed the lid on the gatorade and tried to drink it, but most of it was frozen. I had one sport bean, but it was frozen too. I've run in temperatures this cold before, but not on a long run.

This was not a great week for me in terms of running. I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut. Maybe starting official marathon training after another week will get me out of the rut. Or maybe it will wear me out completely.

But I'll be glad tomorrow after my choir program is over. And we're struggling with the decision of which car to buy. That situation will probably be resolved in a couple of days as well.