4.25 Miles with new headlamp

This weekend, I purchase a headlamp. I was pretty excited because I can go back to my normal running routes and be sure that people saw me, or so I thought. I used my head lamp for the first time last night. One of my favorite loops have me run about a half mile west of my house and then turn south on a paved road. The road has no shoulder, but doesn't really need one as there is not a lot of traffic on the road. Last night, I just barely turned south and was running on the left side of the road when I saw a car coming at me. I thought that they would see my light and move over a little bit to give me some room. Wrong. The car stayed in its lane and I had to head for the ditch. I had a few choice words I muttered under my breath. After that the run went well. I average a 7:28 pace, which is a pretty fast training run for me. I also was a little faster coming back than going out, which isn't normal for me. One other thing that I noticed about running with the headlamp is that it feels like I am running through a tunnel. Overall, I like the head lamp though. I might try to take it out on some trails before the snow flies too much.

running to ease frustrations

Whenever, I am frustrated, I seem to have a good run in the evening. A few weeks ago, I was frustrated that my morning run was slow. I went and ran the same loop in the evening was over 45 sec/mi faster. Last night, I was thinking about how poorly I played basketball on Wed, and had an awesome run. I felt relaxed and fresh the entire time even though I was still a little sore from basketball the night before. It feels good after a disappointment to bounce back and have a good day of training.

Sprinting Sucks

Last night was the first night of City League Basketball. Thank god we had 8 guys to sub in and out because I got worn out fast while sprinting up and down the court. During the second half, I caught my second wind, but we all stuggled with fatigue. We were also very rusty out there playing. As the season wears on, hopefully we can work that rust out. We ended up losing by 5 points.

Saturday morning was a great day for a run. I don't know what it is about Saturday mornings, but I almost always enjoy getting up early on the and going for a run. This week, the weather was perfect. I met up with Stacy to work out the Frozen Feat routes. This year, we are starting at GF Herald building, so we need a new route. Luckily, the 5k route seemed to find itself as we found a loop that was nearly exactly 5k from the door. We will just have to play around with the Start/Finish line a little bit. The 10 route is an extension of the 5k route. Right now it is a little long so I have to cut some out. Should be doable though.

On Monday, I decided to do a little speedwork. I did 4x800. My times were:
3:03
3:03
3:05
3:12

I wanted to do on more but I was dead tired after 4. I slowed down quite a bit the last one as well. By April next year, I'd like to be able to do 6 under 3:10. Hopefully the sprinting up and down the basketball floor at City League will help me get some speed and keep it over several 800s. 1st game is Wednesday. It should be fun.

Back at It

After taking a week off to get ready for hunting, I am back at it this week. Last night I ran 3.5 miles as I was starting to get ideas for the Frozen Feat 5k. We have a pretty good base for the race, but getting it exactly 3.1 miles is tricky. Stacy wants to get a 10k in this year also. That will be next once we hammer out the 5k.

2010 Muddy Buddy in Mpls

I came across this race website awhile ago (www.muddybuddy.com) and it looked like a blast of race. I wanted to somehow fit it into my race schedule and had to figure out how to convince my wife that the cost of the trip was worth it. Today I found out that they are adding a Muddy Buddy race in Minneapolis in 2010, where I have tons of friends to stay with. I am pumped. Now all I need is a partner for the race.