Training 1/23 - 1/29

Numbers alone point to this being a very solid week. Very happy about that. However, I didn't feel particularly springy, but that's not a surprise with two races and a 20-mile road run. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I want to make sure that I'm keeping up the positive momentum.

Onto the numbers...

1/23, Sunday: 8.75 total, Bradbury Squall.

1/24, Monday: 5 - 47:22, Topsham Snowmobile Trails to Lovers' Lane. Good, solid recovery run. Kept the pace very easy. The snowmobile trails were pretty decently packed.

1/25, Tuesday: 5.75 total, 3k snowshoe race. Fourth week of Nordic Meisters, and I was back at it after a week away. Snow conditions were much softer, making the sidehills pretty sketchy and borderline unrunnable. Those sections of the course aren't really a lot of fun, but the rest of the course is a fair test. Time reflected both the snow conditions and my effort: 20:18, which was not all out. Tempo effort, but it's tough to gauge with the aforementioned sidehill. Felt a little sluggish and cut the cool down short.

1/26, Wednesday: Off

1/27, Thursday: 20 - 2:39:27, Brunswick Bike Path. After the snow on Wednesday, I wanted to stay off the roads, or, more specifically, the uncleared, slushy, frozen mess on the road shoulders. The Bike Path was the obvious choice. Including the less traveled roads on either end of the Bike Path, the total length is about 3.25 miles. Yup, 20 miles on a 3.25 mile stretch of road. This run was really more of a mental test than a physical one. I did have some annoying back spasms at about 13 miles, but I was able to run through them. Did I mention the wind? Overall, this run was hard...or at least it felt hard.

1/28, Friday: 4 - 42:10, Mt. Ararat Snowshoe. Beautiful day: sunny with temps in the low 30's. I was tired from the previous day, and I cut this one short. With a race scheduled for the next day, I didn't want to push it. The tired legs were worrisome.

1/29, Saturday: 8 total, Sidehiller 4 Mile Snowshoe Race.

Totals:
Miles: 51.5
Trail: 27.5
Road: 24

There are so many reasons I should be thrilled about this week, but I'm not all the way to thrilled. I feel like it's only OK. The mileage alone is better than any single week of 2010, and I had two great races on top of that. Good reasons to be excited, but I'd like to see this become more of a standard week in 2011, and, as I mentioned, none of it came easy. Then again, maybe that's the point.