After a rainy/sleety/snowy Monday and a snowy Tuesday morning and early afternoon, the skies cleared up *just* enough for my run. Today's work out called for a 1 mile warmup, 7 miles @ Tempo (8:05/mile) (I double-checked, DopeyBadger!) and a half mile cool down.
It was a drag to have to layer up again today, but it's still March in Iowa and frankly, I was just happy the sidewalks were relatively clear after all of the precipitation and considering it was only a few degrees above freezing. I definitely lucked out.
After my warmup mile, I kicked it into Tempo gear and ... ran way too fast, 7:39. The next six miles were mostly better:
- 8:05
- 8:16
- 7:56
- 7:46 (oops)
- 8:05
- 8:05
So, a surprisingly consistent tempo run considering it felt a little all over the place and that's not a pace that I'm super used to. Huzzah for tempo runs.
Sidebar: I think I need to say something about my Hoka shoes. Anyone who has followed this log from the beginning (all six pages of it!) will recall I was pretty hard on my shoes early on. Well, I've now put more than 300 miles on these shoes and I'm pretty happy with the results. Ever since my stress fracture 2-3 years ago I've had seemingly every foot, knee, ankle and leg pain imaginable. I suspect a lot of it is because I'm a heel striker and I supinate quite a bit. I burn through shoes in seemingly record time and feel aches and pains pretty quickly. Well, that hasn't happened with these shoes. I'm really pleased with the results.
So, I've gone from pretty anti-Hoka to thinking I'll probably get another pair at the end of the month when I'm over 400 miles and in need of fresh shoes for the marathon. Who woulda thunk? Of course, I have to give credit to my wife who suggested re-lacing the shoes, which prevented the tongue from digging into my ankle.
Anyway...
Today's Distance: 8.5 miles
Avg. Pace: 8:13/mile
Time: 1:09:56