After having Wednesday and Thursday off, I knew I'd be well rested for these next two days. The question was whether or not I could do a lot of miles. I wanted to run 27 miles over those two days. I ran with people and had some slower paced runs to make it a little easier to do. After an 8 miler and a 6 miler yesterday, I need 13 miles today to hit 50 miles for the week.
I've been wanting to work with some people to help them get faster. I think I'd like to coach in the future, but it would help to be able to work with a few people first to see how it pans out. Heather and I have been talking about getting together for a hard workout for some time. In talking with her, I felt like she has a lot of potential.
We agreed to meet up in the Parkway. Since there aren't very many clear areas, I figured running repeats on the road into there might work. It wouldn't be a lot of fun, but it was manageable. I didn't want to do too much today. I just hoped to get her used to running fast and see where she is at and work from there.
We agreed to meet at 10 AM, rather than 8 AM, since it would be a little warmer. I was glad for the extra sleep too. I took her watch, so that I she would just run and I'd control the workout. I told her to run a mile warmup at an easy pace, since I don't know what that effort is for her.
She did that and then we started to run hard. I tried not to go too hard, but it wasn't long before she was having trouble breathing. She can seem to run a slower pace for a long time, but has trouble when she goes too fast. I decided to have her try to walk to recover. We tried a second time and I attempted to go slower this time, but she still had an issue.
We might be able to fine tune it so that she can run slightly faster than normal and get a little bit of a better workout, but not too hard that she struggles with it. However, I didn't feel like it was something she should mess with. I'm not sure what the issue is with her breathing, but I think it could be a medical problem and it is something worth trying to figure out before pushing too much. It's not worth risking anything. If she can get that corrected, then we can really work on things. I hope it gets figured out because I feel like she can be an awesome runner.
Since the fast running didn't work, I decided that we might as well just continue running slow. We did some more out and back for a couple extra miles. It was a good time to chat and enjoy some semi decent weather. We ran to 5 miles and were done. We had a nice lunch afterward too. Hopefully in the future, I can be more helpful to Heather and she can be running strong.
After the runs and lunch, I wanted another run. I headed to Riverview Park on the way home. I planned on an easy 8 miles, to get to 50 for the week. They plowed toward the Boat Launch, so I headed out that way. That was a mistake. It was a giant sheet of ice.
I went slowly and cautiously over it. Of course, I'm stubborn and kept going, despite the conditions. Finally, after about a mile of that, I had had enough and turned around. It was slow coming back too, but I didn't fall.
The weather wasn't bad, but it did get cloudy and that made it a bit more chilly. I had on normal gear, with a jacket instead of my fleece vest. The headband went off and on. Sometimes, I put my hood up too. I couldn't decided.
After 2 miles, I went back out in the other direction toward Easton. They plowed that before the other section, so I figured that it would be better. I knew it couldn't be worse. First, I ran a loop around the Canal Museum parking lot. That adds a nice and smooth mile.
I was then going out the other way. This path had some ice, but it was much clearer and more runnable. The legs weren't feeling strong, but they weren't bad either. Breaking the last two days into 4 different shorter runs was a big help. Running nice and easy didn't hurt either.
I ran out until I was just over the 4 mile point. I saw some people and being alone on this trail, I decided to head back. It was an uneventful run back. I only saw one other person the whole time. Before long, I was back at the Canal Museum area.
I ran another loop at that parking lot and headed back to Riverview. When I got to Riverview, I had less than 3/4 of a mile left. I decided that I could deal with the ice for that short distance. I passed a woman that was walking and she must've thought I was crazy. I was then done in no time and not feeling too bad.
Maybe these last two days weren't the best use of my running time, but I'm fine with that. I just wanted to get some easy running done and finish off the week. I'm looking for a big week again this coming week. Then, I'll back off after that.
Tomorrow, we are supposed to get a bit more snow. I'm hoping I can run another easy 6 or 7 miles. I'd really love to be able to run 23 on Monday. If I can do that, I'll rest on Tuesday and continue on after that. I want to run 70 miles again for the entire week.
Morning Run 5 miles - 55:10 (11:02 pace)
Afternoon Run 8 miles - 1:10:48 (8:51 pace)
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