Training 3/6 - 3/12

First official quasi-taper week. Only quasi because it was more of a step down week than a full taper. The real taper madness begins next week. One item that I glazed over in last week's recap was the shin/ankle pain from the previous week. Well, it left as quickly as it came. Unofficial diagnosis was tightness in my anterior tibialis. Ice, heat and The Stick did the trick. Or, I raced it out at the Bradbury Blizzard. Runners actually believe they can do that.

Onto the numbers...

3/6, Sunday: Off

3/7, Monday: 5 - 40:42, Patriot Commons + Route 201. Just a random road run from home in the rain and wind. Fairly gross out. Legs felt fine, but it certainly wasn't one of those runs that you enjoy.

3/8, Tuesday: 8 - 58:07, Meadow Cross Road. Plan was to run the first 2 miles easy, then the last 6 at marathon pace. I felt great, and marathon pace turned into a 7:02 average. That's certainly quicker than my marathon pace right now, but it felt very comfortable so I rolled with it. After the previous day's rain, I did get to run through 200 yards of ankle deep nearly freezing water at the 3-mile mark. The elderly folks in the church van headed in the other direction gave me some interesting looks. I laughed as a ran through their wake.

3/9, Wednesday: 7 - 1:08:23, Topsham Snowmobile Trails, Dump Loop w/ D. D was doing a recovery run after her long run the previous day, so we kept the pace very easy. Nice morning on the trails.

3/10, Thursday: 14 - 2:12:41, Topsham Snowmobile Trails, Dump Loop, Murder Road and Other Random Trails. Wandered on the Topsham snowmobile trails to get to 14. Explored some new trails, one that may be a good summer addition. Some light snow started falling in the last few miles, but it didn't really affect the trail conditions, which were a tad soft. I did try to check out a couple more snowmobile trails, but turned back on each after postholing a couple times after only a few yards. I wasn't in the mood for bloody shins.

3/11, Friday: 3.75 - 31:56, Highland Green Construction Road. Rainy, windy and gross. I did get to run on a muddy road, though—only redeeming quality of this run. Just a bad day to be outside.

3/12, Saturday: 3.25 - 27:26, Patriot Commons. Considered taking the day off, but I subscribe to the theory that you should always do an easy run the day before a race, and with the Granite State Snowshoe Championship on tap for Sunday, I squeezed in a couple miles. Plenty of snow-eating fog to go around. Very uneventful.

Totals:
Miles: 41
Trail: 21
Road: 20

All in all, a pretty uneventful week, but that was just what I was going for. I guess that a mellow, successful training week doesn't make for a very good blog post.