Week 1 of Training Complete

10 American Runners to watch for 2013, Felix Limo retires.

Wednesday, January 9th - ~6.5 miles.  Ran with Justin in Forest Park after work.  Legs were garbage, and felt pretty awful so we kept the pace pretty slow.  Pretty cool that the daylight lasts longer, and we got the majority of this run in with some daylight.  Great night to run with it being relatively cool, and lots of people out in Forest Park this evening.  8:37/mile average pace.  Felt a lot faster, sadly.

Thursday, January 10th - 6 miles.  Spraying misty rain all evening, and Mike literally dragged my sorry butt outside.  Trail run out and back towards Home Depot.  The mist made it tough to see, so ran sans glasses which was a little frustrating.  Had a long talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame, and how no one got voted in this year due to all the controversial candidates (i.e. Bonds, Clemens).  The steroid era will make the next 5 years or so of voting very tricky, and I am curious to see how the voters react to this and if any of the suspected/convicted steroid users make it in.  Anyways, I digress - run was overall ok, and felt tiring - legs aren't back yet and still feeling the Tuesday workout.  No watch, but pace felt pretty fast at the end (well at least the effort).  Guessing we started at high 8 minute/mile pace, and ended high 7 minute/mile pace.  The conversation made the run feel like a 15 minute run - went by wicked fast!  49-50 minutes total

Friday, January 11th - 7 miles (2 up, 3 mile tempo, 2 down).  Spent all day travelling for work, so was already tired from being crammed into a vehicle for almost 6 hours of my day.  Almost decided against running, but guilted myself into giving it a good attempt as my legs didn't feel too bad.  Nice and actually a bit warm (shorts weather), but pretty windy outside.  Warmed up on my way to Village Circle, then did a little extra on the trail.  The plan was to hit 6:15-6:20/mile pace, which shouldn't have been too hard given I hit a sub 19 minute 5K without too many problems a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately, the tempo was a bust - never felt comfortable, and my splits were pretty much crap.  Felt like I was pushing on the first mile (dead on pace), then my splits from there were way off.  Had to kick to break 6:30 on the last mile, and it was definitely some work to do so.  I was really disappointed, but Crystal made me feel better in citing the travel factors, so my first tempo goes down as a big thumbs down.  Slow cooldown, then drowned my sorrows about how crappy of a runner I am at Cleveland Heath/Erato later that night.  Yes, this is being very overdramatic on my part.  But I am in better mind now, since everyone has bad workouts here and there.  Splits were: 6:18, 6:33 (jesus), 6:28.

Got some bad news during the day - Crystal's nagging shin injury over the last month or so turned out to be a stress fracture, according to her latest bone scan.  So her running has been reduced substantially during this healing period, which means my main training partner is out :(  But she will be dragged out for corework and other non-running activities, so not all is lost.

Saturday, January 12th - ~6.5 miles.  Ran Mud Mountain course at SIUE with Colby in the morning.  Crazy temps, as it was sunny and around 60 degrees.  Warm enough where I took my shirt off on the second loop!  Mud Mountain was a bit sloppy in parts as it had rained a bit on Friday, but very manageable.  Saw the guys/girls XC teams out there running, so nice to have company.  The hills were as unpleasant as usual, but nice to breeze through a run with some different scenary.  Long stretching afterwards, and some intense corework at night.  No watch, but kept pace easy (didn't feel easy) - thinking it was low 8's pace.

Sunday, January 13th - 12 miles.  Cold, cold, and more cold.  Sleeted on and off throughout the morning/afternoon, so eventually made it outside for an out and back on the trail towards Troy.  Legs were pretty tired, so kept pace pretty easy.  No watch again, but somewhere between 8-9 minute pace.  Most of the time, I was concentrating on staying warm and not getting blown away!  NFL Playoff games all day - watched 2 of the more ridiculous games I have ever seen (Denver-Baltimore, Atlanta-Seattle) and reminded myself how much I love football!  On a cool note, warmed up my cooking hands and made my first ever soup from scratch!  Came out pretty good, despite my failures on how to use a food processor.  This is my second recipe I have cooked using this website, and pretty pleased with the results so far.  Simple to make, and not too much time spent prepping/cooking, and very tasty - all winners in my book!  54 miles this week, 65.5 miles in January, 65.5 miles in 2013.  Poor workouts, but a solid mileage week.

Group run tonight, then back to the track tomorrow.  Headed to Denver later this week - can't wait to run in the mountains this weekend!