It's About Time!

Hard to believe it, but spring training really is here.

I'm back at it. Despite a major work hangover this morning, followed by a nap, I managed to get more than 17 miles in today. And I finally, finally ran sub-8 minute pace, at least for a little while, on our tempo run.

I did 6 easy this morning with a few strides, follwed by a decent 11 mile tempo run tonight with Wheaties Boy. I averaged 8:19 pace tonight, not bad for how I've been feeling the past week, and I even threw in a couple of sub-8 minute miles, which I've been waiting for.

I was wondering where those sub-8s disappeared to, for some reason I was never able to hit sub-8 minute pace on our tempo runs last year, but my plan is to get my runs solidly into the 7 minute range this spring. I guess they were waiting for spring, too. Improvement is improvement, I'll take it!

Tonight we ran the Power Trail instead of a more interesting route, but the ice has taken over all of the smaller streets in town. It's great to live in a place that plows the bike paths before the streets, but every once in a while some ice removal would be welcome.

The Great Antarctic Ice Sheet has returned to our neighborhood. If you're wondering where the polar ice caps have disappeared to, come to central Fort Collins, I can show you. We're just waiting for the ice dam to get someone's car high-centered and stuck in the intersection, so we can call the city and ask them to remove some of the ice. Otherwise they'll never come out.

Tomorrow it's back to work for one day and then I need to get my butt over to the track before we get another blast of cold weather this weekend. I'll have to tough it out on the hills at Horsetooth in the cold but I can bundle up there and run easier than trying to do speedwork wearing 6 layers of clothing.

The other thing I noticed was the sky was light until nearly 5:15 pm. Two and half weeks past solstice, we're making progress.