Snow Way!

So why am I back on the treadmill, feeling a bit like a hamster? Here’s why:



This was our first major (more than a couple of inches) snowfall in six years. Combined with highs at or below freezing and lows at about 10 degrees, and icy streets for a few days, running outside in the dark didn’t seem like such a great idea. Now, our teammates north of the Arctic Circle – you know, New England, upstate New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and so forth – have to deal with this type of weather and worse all the time. But we don’t here in the Old Dominion, so we are kind of clueless when it happens. It did get me out of work Monday. Northerners would have laughed at this. They would have rolled naked in the snow, towelled themselves off, then gotten dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, and gone to work.

Ironically, the day the storm started – Sunday – I saw my first spring flowers: bunches of daffodils! They were no doubt buried alive since that time.

Monday was my cross training day, and cross training consisted of cleaning 11 inches of snow out of my driveway and helping some neighbors with their shoveling. Yesterday and today were 5 mile and 6.2 mile indoor workouts on the treadmill. As I’ve written before, the good thing about the treadmill is that I can keep a nice even pace, 5.8 miles per hour running and 4.5 miles per hour walking. I tried run intervals of 8 minutes and walk intervals of 5 minutes, which averages out to just over 11 minutes per mile. This is about a minute a mile faster than what I was averaging a few months ago, so I am slowly making progress as the half marathon approaches in less than eight weeks.

After tonight’s training, I have having some knee pain, which is a rarity for me. So I think I will do cross training in the pool tomorrow, rest those joints, and try to be well for my 12 miles with the team on Saturday. By Saturday, the highs should be in the 70’s, believe it or not, and we will be running in shorts, deep snows a nearly distant memory. I may even see some more daffodils along the route!