Sorry for all the complaining in my
last post. I have to mention that I've had some great runs outside over the last couple weeks. These probably should have been separate posts but I've been busy! I'll try to keep each one short.
Almost two weeks ago, I took
TNTchoach Ken's advice and showed up at a
Hash. The meeting point was less than a half mile from my house the very week I had
posted that I was thinking about checking them out, so I figured I was meant to go! I managed to convince a friend and my boyfriend to go with me, and we wandered over to where the directions said to meet. We arrived and the three of us were invited to cram into a car (already with four people in it) and have a beer. Car by car more people arrived and about a half hour later we were inside introducing ourselves. These people are
hilarious and very energetic. I loved it! We opted for the three mile route, which kicked my butt with some steep hills through the woods in about a foot of snow (mostly unshoveled!). After a while we were left alone and pretty confused because we didn't know what all of the marks meant, but luckily we ended up with the Hare so were guided straight to the beer check. At this point I was cold and wet enough that I just wanted to get inside, but I enjoyed talking to people. We had naively assumed that since it was a three mile run we'd only be outside for a half hour. We didn't realize that the run would be so challenging, long, or that we would be standing outside having a beer afterwards! We almost went home straight after the beer check because of the cold, but a bunch of the Hashers protested saying that afterwards was the best part. Naive again! Luckily there were others that were cold and we knew how to get directly back to the cars so we led everyone on a shortcut off the trail back to the starting point.
Again, we almost went home but were convinced to grab a ride to the Hare's house for the hash. I was more up for it than my boyfriend was because I was kind of swept up by the excitement of everyone else. We rode over in the back of a van, and as we got out carrying two cases of beer it hit me: we're about to go into a guy's house, that we don't know, with a bunch of beer, and hang out. This is weird. Still, they were super inviting and I had a great time. They have some awesome rituals! I can't say enough that everyone was so nice and inviting. I definitely want to go back next time they're in Ann Arbor!
Last Friday I got my butt out of bed, strapped on my head lamp, and went for a six mile loop outside. It reminded me how much I like running outside! I was able to do a 2 mile easy-2 mile tempo-2 mile easy run as prescribed by week 1 of the FIRST plan. Unfortunately the 2 mile tempo part fell during an icy and hilly area, but I just tried to push through it and came out just over my target pace. I was expecting to be way over so happy with that!
Saturday was the first of the long training runs, eight miles. I had to get up early, so the rest of the runners in my dept opted to do it on their own later in the day, but my bf wanted to do it with me. Excellent! Noting that the high for the day was going to be 16F, we decided to do some windbreaker shopping. We went over to a local outdoor store that he knew was having a sale on jackets, only the sale was only for Men's jackets. I found a
Marmot rain jacket that was 25% off. I took it up to the register, and it was like half the amount I thought it would be. I questioned the price and the sales girl noted that it was 25% off, plus an extra 15% off. I shrugged it off, noting that it still didn't add up, but whatever it was way cheaper than I thought. Good deal! I got home and looked at the receipt and saw 57% off! No matter how you do the math, that $99 jacket with a 25% and 15% discount does not add up to a $43 jacket. As unethical as it may be I didn't take it back to tell them!
The eight miler was COLD. The jacket worked out, as my core was warm the whole time, but whenever we hit any elevation the wind would freeze my face. I need a face mask but I refuse to get one and look like a weirdo. :) Here are some pictures from the run:
Tuesday I was due for five miles with intervals. I wasn't feeling too hot in the morning so I pushed it off to the evening. By the time I got home it was freezing out and I easily could have been talked into skipping it. My bf wanted to do three outside so we made a deal that if the temperature violated the double digit rule (whereby I only run outside if the temperature is above 10F), we'd skip it. We were surprised that it was 18F out so we got dressed and hit the road. We only did three, but I felt I challenged myself and had a great time. We warmed up for a mile, and then every few minutes we'd sprint for up to two minutes. I ended up with one two minute sprint and three 1:30 sprints, all of which were between 7:30 and 7:45/mile. That's pretty good for my current state! The run ended up being a ton of fun and not very cold so I am glad I made it out.
This morning violated the double digit rule, so I hit the treadmill. I did weights last night so my legs felt like bricks, but I got it done. I'm glad that's over! I would really like to add some cross training in, but I think I need to add it in slowly as my muscles clearly aren't used to being worked too many days in a row.
Have a great end of the week everyone!
