I took a much needed day off yesterday. I needed 20 more miles to end the week over these final 2 days. Logic would've said to split them up evenly. However, it is Valentine's Day. Since I'm alone and have nothing better to do, I thought why not run 14 miles to celebrate (or be depressed).
After last night's snowstorm, I wanted to run in the afternoon. The roads were plowed by then and partially snow covered, but very runnable. The problem was that the wind was absolutely brutal. It was over 20 MPH and even worse with the gusts. Since I was tired, I took a nap instead.
They cancelled most of tonight's basketball games, so that freed me up to run after dark. The wind died down completely by then. If anything, maybe it was even too warm out. I had on a jacket, gloves and a headband and that was kind of too much. I kept the gloves on most of the run.
The plan was to just run all the usual neighborhood loops to get to 14 miles. I'm really getting tired of these routes, but in winter I don't have any choice. I began with the mile around my neighborhood. The legs weren't 100%, but they weren't bad either.
After that first mile, I ran a couple short loops around the school parking lot. I then headed into the other neighborhood. I needed to mix things up. I took the shorter loop and ran it and an add on backward. I also added another different road. That put on some additional mileage.
I had a rough idea of the loop I wanted to do. I looked at my watch before mile 2, but didn't bother to peek at it for some time after that. As I headed back to the main loop, a car didn't see me and ended up having to move over in the snowy road at the last minute.
For the most part, the roads weren't bad. They were snowy in spots, with black ice here and there. Overall, they weren't too slippery though. I ran a short loop near my friend's old house. I then headed back along the main loop. I did another one of my regular paper clip shaped loops.
I had no idea where I was mileage wise. After that loop, I finally checked my watch. I didn't even think I was quite at mile 7 yet and much to my surprise, I was at 7.6 miles already. I was thrilled to be over halfway done with the run.
As I went up a hill, two kids were out in the yard playing and they started cheering me on. That was cool. My quads were still a little sore, but actually the rest of my legs and body felt great. I was so energized.
Without really trying to, I picked up the pace. It was at 8:21 overall near mile 8. It dropped and dropped and dropped after that. After the biggest hill on the route, I heard my watch beep. I thought it might be mile 10, but I was disappointed to look down and see mile 9.
I continued on the loop. I figured that when I got back to the school it would be mile 11.5. Not bad, but I wanted to be inside of 2 miles to go when I got there. Therefore, I decided to do some of the paper clip loop. I was only going to do part of it, but instead just decided to run the whole thing again.
Shortly before finishing the loop, I was at mile 11. With 3 miles to go and feeling good, I decided to push myself a bit. I felt so fast and free. After a nice 7:46 the mile before, mile 12 was run at 7:19.
I arrived back at the school at mile 13. That mile was a 7:00. I continued to feel great and watched the overall pace drop some more. It got closer and closer to 8:00 and then finally it dropped under that in this last mile. I ran 3 loops around the school parking lot to finish up that mile with a blazing 6:35. While I was pushing fairly hard, I had more in the tank too. That is encouraging for next weekend's half marathon.
Now, I only have 6 miles left to do to get to 70 for the week. Then, I can start to back off a bit. Tomorrow morning, I'm hoping to run with the BCR. However, it is supposed to snow a few inches again overnight. We shall see. I'm watching basketball most of the day (if they don't cancel it), so I don't know when I'd fit in a run if I don't do one in the morning. I'll find the time, somehow.
14 miles - 1:51:28 (7:58 pace)
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