January 10 - January 16

Weekly Totals:
Distance: 60.34 mi. Time: 10:23:06 Vertical Gain: 6,033 ft.


Monday:
Distance: 2.04 mi.
Time: 0:23:34
Vertical Gain: 186 ft.


The clouds painted the ground white, the driving came to a halt and the pool was closed. Generally, on Mondays, I like to cross-train with some kind of low impact activity usually a combination of rock-climbing and swimming. However, today demanded an easy run with LK in "the southern powder snow." The pace was easy and it was nice to slow way down and enjoy the cool precipitation solidly placed on the ground the night before.


Tuesday:
Distance: 8.01 mi.
Time: 1:16:52
Vertical Gain: 467 ft.


Yesterday was soft "southern powder," and today was an ice skating rink on the roads. I was apprehensive to get outside, but came to the conclusion that running isn't about having perfect weather. I hit the roads, ran around ice patches, through slush, and past dumbfounded drivers. In the end, my right toe took a bit more stress than usual because of the sliding and felt somewhat sore, but the run was worth it.


Wednesday:
Distance: 10.32 mi.
Time: 1:30:05
Vertical Gain: 65


Another day of treacherous road conditions and to top it off I was exhausted and didn't want to run. I decided to drive to a track, moronically thinking that it would be clear and easy to run my 400m repeats, only to turn around drive back home and crash on the couch. I just didn't have it in me to run. I was tired, I had been sitting at home since Sunday, and running just didn't seem to fit into my empty schedule. Needless to say, I awoke from my nap to see LK walk to the door in running clothes and say, "I'm going running, even though I don't really feel like it." That's all it took, I got up found a 1/4 mi. of asphalt with the least amount of ice and ran 14 X 400m's with 2:00 min. jog and 1:00 min. rest in-between. Sometimes you find motivation in the oddest places. For me, today, it just seeing some else making the decision to go do something with the future in focus (for LK, the Georgia Marathon) and not the present.


Thursday:
Distance: 8.00 mi.
Time: 1:18:29
Vertical Gain: 721 ft.


Although I hadn't really run on the road except one day this week, courtesy the snow and ice coverings, I really felt like I was missing something in my training, the trail. So, instead of hitting the safer road conditions I decided to test out some snow trail running. It's not often that I've had the actual opportunity to run on a snow packed trail which left me pretty excited for an 8 mi. recovery run. It took 6 miles to get used to the "new" terrain, but by the end I was running a 'normal' recovery pace.


Friday:
Distance: 11.32 mi.
Time: 1:28:34
Vertical Gain: 250 ft.


A great day of training. Wednesday's low motivation debacle behind, I set out to redeem myself with some nice mile repeats. Five to be exact. A nice warm 45 degree temperature allowed for short sleeves, shorts, and gloves. The mile paces was in my 10k pace range: 6:44 - 6:32, but because it was on the road and relatively flat I dipped toward to the lower end and just a bit faster. Mile 1: 6:26, Mile 2: 6:31, Mile 3: 6:37, Mile 4: 6:28, and Mile 5: 6:25. I put in about a 1/4 mi. rest in-between, and by the end everything felt fluid.


Saturday:
Distance: 6.25 mi.
Time: 0:55:36
Vertical Gain: 119 ft.


This has been the longest week I've had during this training and with tomorrow's run being a 16 miler on the Appalachian Trail, I didn't want to be overly exhausted, but I also just wanted to run. So, 6.25 on an easy course at a very easy pace seemed to be a good idea. It felt good, at least. After finishing, I felt a little more tired than anticipated, but didn't think much of it.


Sunday:
Distance: 14.4 mi.
Time: 3:29:56
Vertical Gain: 4,225 ft.

This was the worst run of the week, month, year, etc. I set out for 16 mi. on the toughest stretch of the Appalachian Trail and I got my ass handed to me in the form of  running into a wall. I big brick, concrete, diamond encrusted, insert your own hardened material, wall. Prior to the run I felt recovered, physically, but when I started the run I started on a hungry stomach which made it even worse and at about mile 12 I started feeling dizzy & dumb (sure sign of an impending bonk) and mile 13 became a walk/hike. I finished up at mile 14 and walked back to the car. Today's run, in hindsight, was great but the bonk was awful. But what can someone expect with a profile like this: