the Way of the Turtle

BACK ON THE GERBIL WHEEL...
12.5 Mile Run Along the Mohawk-Hudson Bikepath
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Yesterday was bitterly cold, compounded by blistering winds which kept the windchill down into subzero temperatures all day. Tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be similar. Today was cold but not too windy, so - long run tonight!

Headed over to the plowed section of the bike path to run back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... not very exciting, but it's pretty much the only safe place to run at night right now. I briefly considered doing a few miles on the snow-covered section (it's fairly well packed) but the combination of sunny days and bitter cold over the past few days has left the surface of the snow coated with a layer of ice... pretty to look at but not good for running on.

I was a little concerned when I headed out for my first leg that I was underdressed, but I warmed up soon enough... and one nice thing about it being so cold is I tend not to overheat! Made good time on the first leg - 54 minutes for 4.5 miles. The second leg felt pretty good too... and even the third leg was decent up until the last two miles, which started to hurt a bit. Overall managed to do 12.5 miles in 2 hr 35 minutes... over half an hour less than it took me to run 13 miles on the same stretch of path last week. So either my body's starting to adapt to the longer distance, or I had a good night, or both...

I like the new windbreaker I bought on clearance at Wal-mart... it doesn't breathe all that well but the fleece lining tends to push moisture outward to that it collects between the lining and the shell. That gave me a good indication of how cold it was - while I was running the last two legs, I noticed something crackling on my jacket... turns out the water that collected on the inside of the shell had frozen, leaving me with ice in my jacket! I ended the run damp (maybe someday I'll get an expensive breathable Gore-tex jacket but for now I'll make do with my clearance specials) but fairly warm... gotta love polar fleece.

So all in all a good run and a nice break from grading, grading, grading... now I just have to figure out where I'm going to run 15-16 miles this weekend. The 20 Mile is rapidly approaching!

JMH