Some Warm Workouts This Week!

Let's start with last Friday... it was going to be the last really cold morning for a while. I went out for 6+ miles while it was 5 degrees because I was annoyed that my PREVIOUS SIX runs were all on the treadmill. (That includes the previous 2 that were at different hotels as we were on the road.) So I finished up my run on Friday looking like this:

Frosty frosty!

Then it warmed up over the weekend. When I headed out for my long run on Monday morning, it was 40 degrees! I went from lots of layers at 5 degrees to just a long sleeve shirt. My hat and mittens were off before mile 2. It was glorious!

There was a LITTLE slippage as the west side of the river was a little slick - there was so much melting over the weekend that the trails were wet and starting to re-freeze a little even though it was well above freezing. But my run still went well. Overall, I did 11.66 miles in 1:19:14 (6:48 overall pace) with the middle 6 miles harder in 36:38 (6:06.33/mile pace). That was the first outdoor long run with 5 or 6 "hard miles" averaging below 6:10 for the first time since early October's TC 10 Mile!!

Hard miles west of the river (out and back from split 5 to split 17).
[Splits are half-miles.]

I ran the last 3 miles of those "hard miles" in 17:58, or just under 6:00 pace. It felt decent out there!

Then the next day, I had a normal swim and upper body workout. But it was nearly 50 degrees, so I grabbed my bike (that I just figured out WASN'T broken) and hit parts of the same trails for a nice 13 mile ride on my mountain bike (still too much grit for my tri bike).

Hitting a hill on Pelham, going down the Greenway a bit,
and adding a little extra on Summit Ave.


NO GLOVES AT ALL! That means it's REAL nice while biking!

It doesn't show it in that last photo, but the trail along River Road was PACKED in places! Everyone was out enjoying a warm February day!