It's still winter.

Yep, March is here. It's been a month since I've blogged. We've been crazy busy--weddings, running, mini-road-tripping. And you know what? It ain't over. You know what also ain't over? Winter.

It's still cold as a mofo here. The snow has tapered off, but it's still on the ground and falling now and then. I can't wait to have our entire driveway back. Since the first snowmageddon at the beginning of January, so much snow has accumulated from the sky, shoveling, and the plows on Joe's side of the end of our driveway that there's just enough room for one car to get through. It sucks on trash day.

The weather is reflecting in my running stats. I've been way more disciplined about getting the miles in than I was at the end of 2013. Last week was my first week over forty miles since Chicago Marathon training last summer and fall. But my pace, it's been strugglin'. This year I'm averaging a sad 6.4 miles per hour. For 2012 and 2013 I maintained a 6.8 average. It's no small task to establish a good pace in ankle-deep snow week after week. I guess that I'm at least getting outside; that's a good thing. Also, apparently Garmin Connect doesn't account for treadmill pace when it's calculating average pace. Although we don't have a treadmill I've managed to do way more treadmill runs in two months than I had done in two years.

To-do list: Buy a house that has a basement so that we can buy a treadmill.

That's reasonable. Right? I've got priorities, man.

I've been killing it on our long runs. The last two weeks we had 17 and 18 miles. The snow sorta helped because it forced me to run slowly, which has gotten me to finally do those real LSD runs. After both of them I felt like a beast and I wasn't sore at all. Okay, that's a lie. I was sore after the 17-miler, but that was because I fell. On ice. Yep, right onto my butt. To boot, there was a Gu packet in my butt pocket, which I had forgotten until mile 14 when we stopped for a Gu break. I reached into my pocket and only pulled out a hand covered in Jet Blackberry. I was mildly upset that I had no fuel, but I think my emotions pushed me through the rest of the run to get home. Note: I've still got a sore wrist from when I broke my fall.

Yes, a Gu exploded in my butt.

I've stuck to my speed work on Tuesdays. I destroyed nine solid half-mile repeats last week. This week I only did five, the last of which was at an incline of two. That was kinda rough at 8.4 miles per hour. But I did it!

Thirteen miles tomorrow. I'll run two marathons in a little over a month. It's slightly-nervous-time.

Speed work: I did it!

Last week I promised myself that I would begin doing speed work this week on Tuesday. We got more crazy snowfall over the weekend which made me worry that it wouldn't happen. Then, during the Super Bowl, a friend revealed that she's got a treadmill in her basement and that I'm welcome to use it any time. Boo-yah!

And so it was: Yesterday evening, before trivia, I squeezed in a visit to said friend's house and hopped onto the treadmill. I planned to do four half-mile repeats.

Warm-up: 1 mile @ 6.5 mph

6x 1/2 mile @ 8 mph

1/4 mile @ 6 mph recovery between repeats (5x)

Cool down: 3/4 mile @ 6 mph

Yep, I manned up and threw in two more repeats. During the fourth I was feeling good. Also, I decided mid-run that I wanted to do six miles instead of five. I wasn't sure exactly what my pace was, but I thought 8-miles per hour was a good place to start. Next week I'm going to instead go for negative splits on the repeats, considering that I know I can go harder. Also, I'm going to aim for eight repeats.

This can only improve my speed and endurance, right? We'll find out on April 19th. Or maybe on April 27th. I should probably figure out which marathon in that 8-day span will be my PR attempt. Or, dare I say it, my Boston qualifying attempt...

Mid-Week Musings. Alliteration--WHAT!

In this unprecedented (for my lifetime) super ridiculous, excessive, frozen weather I've been cooped up at home a lot. Here's what's been happening.

On Monday I needed to get off of my ass so I walked to and from the grocery store--bundled up like Randy Parker. I've never been one to complain about winter in Ohio, even as a runner, but this shit is for real. Yesterday evening before trivia we went to Anytime Fitness to do four miles, side-by-side on the treadmills. I was feeling really good and could have gone on for another mile or two. We might end up there again this evening because it's still cold as a mofo.

I'm just going to put this out there so that I do it: Next Tuesday I will begin doing speed work. Last winter around this time I told myself I'd do it weekly, but that only lasted for two weeks. My only excuse is that I didn't commit. This year I need to do it and stick with it. I want to give myself a better chance of improving on my marathon PR and, save for a miracle or voodoo, that's the only way I know how to control it. Although the forecast is calling for snow on that day, I will do speed work next Tuesday. It might mean that I'll need to give in and actually buy a real membership to the gym. Note to self: Next house must have a basement with a phat treadmill. Yeah, I said "phat."

I'm looking forward to our 15-mile long run this Sunday. Looking forward to a long run?! Usually I'm a teeny bit excited to do long runs because I feel so awesome afterwards, but this one is mounting up to be memorable. We're switching it up from P-Burg and Maumee and heading down to flat and windy Bowling Green to run with Joe Boyle. Joe is a teacher living in BG who took up running a few years ago, then received a diagnosis of kidney cancer. In a couple of weeks he'll begin a new treatment routine, so if he's going to run a marathon, he needs to do it now. We don't know Joe at all, but his story has gone sorta viral over the past few days. His original plan was to run 26.2 miles with a few friends and his doctor. Now, though, it's looking like there will be a solid crowd of northwest Ohio runners joining Joe for portions of if not the entire marathon distance. There will even be fuel, aid stations, restrooms, and spectators! If you're interested in supporting Joe, hit up his blog post about the event at this address: http://boyledonia.blogspot.com/2014/01/marathon-details_25.html.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to enjoy the bejesus out of my latte. It's so warm, which is very different from outside.

14 Cold, Snowy Miles

Training last week was rough.

Monday: 5 miles

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday & Thursday: 0 miles (excuse: fever)

Friday: 0 miles (excuse: crazy wind chill)

Saturday: 4 treadmill miles

Sunday: 14 miles

Beginning Saturday night we were under a level two snow emergency. We woke up to more snow, still falling, and a sub-zero wind chill. Still, we were determined to get out for 14 miles. The original plan was to run four miles to our friends, six with them, then four back to home.

We struggled to get out of the house, not because of the weather but because of the stuff we had to do to *prepare* for the weather. You know, find and put on all of our layers, fiddle with busted YakTrax (both of us had one break during the 12-miler the week prior), eat a snack, fill the water bottle, and put on watches, gloves, and mittens. It's a process much like preparing to go deep sea diving. That resulted in taking a 2.5 mile route to our friends instead of the planned four.

The weather wasn't bad, save for the periodic low visibility in blizzard conditions. That also kept traffic at a minimum, so we had free range of the entire road much of the way. At least, until we were on our way home for the last 5.5 miles.

At eight and a half miles It got really, *really* cold. Poor Joe at one point couldn't hold the water anymore because his fingers were too cold, even in gloves. Not long after that my thumbs were cold and stinging and I was actually concerned about frostbite. We stopped so that I could try to warm them up and Joe, being the problem-solver he is, told me to just put my thumbs with my other fingers in the big part of the mittens.

Because it was still snowing, most people and businesses hadn't cleared their sidewalks yet. The church crowd had hit the roads eventually so we had less space and usually no discernible shoulders to run. Most drivers were really considerate, moving over to give us a lot of space and even waving and smiling. One driver of a minivan was deserving of a rock through the windshield, though. He didn't move over, didn't slow down, AND lay on the horn while making an angry face. Seriously?

A few minutes later, after trudging through ankle-deep snow on the sidewalk, Joe's YakTrax were jacked up again. He took off his gloves to adjust them and his hands were red. I gave him the top layer of my mittens (Dumb & Dumber, anyone?) to wear over his gloves, which I guess warmed up his hands significantly.

We ran through some more deep snow on sidewalks. A few times I had to stop to peel clumps of ice off of the bottom of my tights. No, not frost or a little bit of snow--clumps. CLUMPS of ice were built up at my ankles. It sucked.

It was slow (10:08/mile). It was cold. It was snowy. Some drivers were asswipes. But we made it through 14 miles. Treadmills are for the weak. Also, they're for the smart people who want to avoid all of that bullshit.