I concluded my second straight 50 mile week with a 10 mile progression run. It started off with 2 miles easy, 6 miles moderate and 2 miles easy. I'm at my parents house and I ran from there to my old high school and back. I added in a short half mile loop to cover the remainder of the distance.
Clothing selection was tough. The temperature was in the low 40s when I started. The problem was significant wind with large gusts. I opted for just a ColdGear base layer. I actually should've went with just shorts on the bottom, instead of tights.
I started out nice and easy. The wind was a bit brutal early on. It was coming across the side of me from the open fields. I took it nice and easy down this relatively flat portion of the run. My legs were already feeling somewhat dead, so I didn't know how the run would go.
Once I hit two miles, I picked up the pace. The toughest part was that after a short distance, I had a fairly steep climb into town. The climb actually wasn't as bad as I remembered it from my track days, but it wasn't easy either. Thankfully, the wind was at my back in this portion.
After another short climb, I was in town. When there, my legs had a lot of snap. On the relatively flat surface and with the wind behind me, I flew to back to back miles under 7 minutes. I was pushing, but still had a lot left at that point. It was just under 5 miles when I made it to the high school.
As I turned around, school was letting out. I had to avoid quite a few people who were heading home. The wind was now at my face and it slowed me down about 30 seconds per mile. That was tough, but I kept battling. I focused on one mile at a time. I just wanted to get finish with the moderate portion of the run. I knew I could hang on during the last two easy miles.
The wind was very relentless as I headed down the hills out of town. At least I had the easier downhill running in front of me. I was really starting to die though. I struggled to get to mile 8, but I kept pushing and eventually made it there.
My IT band had started acting up a little at about 5.5 miles. I didn't let it bother me much. When I slowed in the last two miles, it became more of a problem. It was all about just finishing at that point. Because I was going to come up short of 10 miles, I looped through a nearby neighborhood within the final mile.
As I finished up along the highway, I came across a dead skunk and had to switch sides of the road. That was one of the obstacles with running on the road. I also was passed by three buses and a few big trucks. Those are annoying because in addition to being dangerous, the produce a lot of wind. The other thing that bothered me was the shoulder on the roads. Because of all the snow that was once there and had melted, it was very soft. That made for some awkward footing.
All in all, it was a good run. It was very productive and I was happy to be able to run as hard and fast as I did. I forgot how tough running on roads is, especially in the winter. It would be nice to have a relief from the wind, but at least I saw warmer temperatures. That's a start. I should be really strong when it warms up.
Hopefully I'm now adapted to these 50+ mile weeks. At 51 miles, this was the longest week of running I've done. I can't wait to do even more. The 10+ mile runs are tough, but a lot of that is due to the awful weather. I just have to keep battling through it.
Sunday is my 17 mile long run to start next week. Since I don't work until Tuesday, I'll likely stay here and run around here. The problem is finding good roads to run that far on. Perhaps I'll do some looping to hydrate. We'll see.
10 miles - 1:14:14 (7:25 pace)
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