There Always is a Silver Lining

Last Friday the weather took a deep drawn in breath. As I drove home from the rare Friday night meeting the weather was calm and placid. Because someone had to attend a secret dinner cooked by ninjas, and because my wonderful girlfriend was preparing to rock her marathon (quick: go tell her what a great job she did), I quickly rearranged my schedule to head out of town by noon on Saturday. This meant I had to get my 22M run in early Saturday morning—no matter what.

While thinking about my upcoming long run and driving down the highway, Winter exhaled. Snow. Hard, heavy, wet snow, carried on angry winds. And caught and ripped away in this late February storm went any hope I had of a quality long run outside. I had no choice, 22M indoors.

Yes, I was going to attempt to do 22M on a treadmill.

It was a fail. I had to stop after 17M. I honestly think I was hallucinating. The fact that there is even a record for most miles run on a treadmill in a 24 hour period is insane.

But a bad long run is not unexpected during marathon training. However, there is some fortunate news. The temps finally moved above freezing. Today, the sun is shining and snow is melting off of sidewalks. On the first day of March, the chokehold Winter has had on this part of the County loosened. The white knuckled grip slackened a bit, enough to provide the most important training tool—hope. A deep gasp of hope. Exactly what I needed.

Today, for the first time, I feel hope about the remainder of my training for Boston. And I can tell you that this break and the arrival of beautiful are not simply coincidence.

A Long Winter, a Long Interval Away

First, I have an absence to explain. Well, my new work has a ‘new’ internet policy. And it’s a little fuzzy whether posting falls under the ‘acceptable internet use’ definition. And of course, our new policy is followed with an ‘observation period.’ So, they were tracking everyone’s internet breadcrumb trail, causing me to go incognito.

Also, with my new job, I’m on the road quite a bit more, while working approximately the same number of hours. The major difference being I’m away from home during the weekdays, quite infrequently having to work on the weekends. While prior I got home about the same time every weekday and put in some hours on the weekend. Why does this matter? Simple, it means that instead of going to workout at 5:30p on weekdays, and having to work a few hours on Sat/Sun (nothing better than working for five hours after a long run), I’m away from home until 8p at night—thereby making consistent weekday workouts very difficult—especially in winter. However, I have an abundance of free time on the weekends, where I only have one run to fit in.

But, alas, the ‘observation period’ has come and gone and I’ll be free to post and comment again. I trust all of you will be magnanimous towards me, and I thank you in advance.

Annnndddd, with all of that perfunctory stuff out of the way, I’ll give you a brief update concerning my training for Boston.

It sucks.

Yep, sucks big time.

Why? I’ve been missing weekday workouts. My long runs are significantly slower than training for Chicago. I’ve borrowed Nitmos’ Cheeto layer, and I can’t seem to give it back. Plus, the weather has been frightful. Clean sidewalks for running—nope. Cold and slippery conditions—yep. Nothing above freezing for a month—yep.

As a for instance. On Saturday I ran 22M. I selected the hilliest route possible for this area, an 11M out and back. The route has several hills and one large slow incline of well over 100 feet. That series of hills is about as close as I can fake it for the “Newton Hills” and its famous peak “Heartbreak Hill.” But it was 21 degrees, and a 15-20mph headwind. So, I had the fight of my life for a 7:54/M average.

But I’ve run long enough is MI to know this: when it comes to January and February, sometimes it is just enough to run the miles hard. When I look back at my training for Bayshore this time last year, my times and speeds are not that different. Everything speed related rests on going hard (but slow) these two months with the hope that speed will bloom in early spring.

Tomorrow I’ll drop my Super Bowl 5K recap, which I ran yesterday.