Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!: December 2025

Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Our Christmas Card!

>> Wednesday, December 31, 2025

I hope you had a Merry Christmas! Click on the front or back of our card for a larger version:

The top right photo is from our Mexico trip, the top middle is from our mid-summer Hawaii trip (that I still really haven't posted about - I have lots of photos!), the 2 of me and my wife are from a family wedding and our anniversary, my wife and the boys (bottom middle) is from their trip to Portugal, and the bottom right is a selfie from Henry's Junior Olympics fencing tournament in Charlotte.

And the back has Charlie with 2 big bass he caught in Alexandria this summer, a pic from after Henry and I raced the Fall Classic Duathlon, and a pic of Henry during his first high school cross-country season.

Happy 2026!!

Failed Speed Workout (Followed by Good Trainer Ride)

>> Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Last week, I was excited because they were predicting 48 hours of above freezing weather from Thursday through Saturday. That meant I could have ice-free paths along River Road to do some speed work on Friday! But when I woke up early that morning, it was foggy. The air was moist. It looked like it could be slick outside as it was 35 degrees.

Down our alley. Look at that ice shine! D'oh.

The sidewalks were OK, so I was hopeful that River Road would be good! But when I ran in the street on some quiet side roads about a mile from home, I noted that the streets were much more slick than the sidewalks - asphalt was "catching" the moisture more than concrete sidewalks.

Foggy down by the river.

The part of the trail where I like to start my 2x2 mile intervals was SLICK. I ran a bit farther, and where I like to do 800s or 400s was OK... for about 200 meters. I hoped it would get better, but it didn't. I turned around after 2 miles, and didn't know if I'd be finding a place to run fast... it was turning into an easy run.

I ran up Marshall Hill thinking maybe I could do hill repeats (of about 0.22 miles), but the top 1/3 of the hill looked like this:

Taken the following day after more melting had occurred... looking down the hill.

I just wasn't finding any LONG ENOUGH section to do any real speed work.

On a last-ditch effort, I ran straight to St. Thomas. Their sidewalks had been nicely cleared, and they were only slick in 2 spots. So I prepped to run a few 800s after warming up for a SUPER long 4.5 miles! Here's my map with 0.25 mile splits being taken... lap 5 is where I like to start 2x2 mile intervals, lap 7 is where I like to run 800s (through lap 9), lap 15 was coming up the hill and finding ice in the last half, and finally the SPEED happened in the orange:

Close-up of the repeats, with a 90 degree turn near the middle.

Resting for 2:00 on the east end. My water bottle and
hoodie were in a tree, hence the walking off the sidewalk.

A looooong "warm-up" on slick sidewalks before 4 quick efforts.
And no cool down because I had logged too many miles already.

My efforts looked like this:

1:22, 1:21 = 1:43.2
1:17, 1:25 = 1:43.5
1:19, 1:22 = 1:42.2
1:17, 1:23 = 1:41.2

Pretty consistant for not running on a track! Each straight-away had an icy spot, but the footing was otherwise decent.

I made up for the lack of speed workout on Friday with a decent trainer workout on Saturday. I started a workout mid-day, but my wife called me upstairs for some "mommy and daddy time" (NOT TURNING THAT DOWN), so it started as 15 mins on the bike followed by me forgetting to stop my Garmin...

... but then a few hours later I got in my REAL workout of 10 x 5 min efforts:

Back with a bit about some FAST long runs shortly!

Treadmill 5K

>> Saturday, December 27, 2025

I posted earlier this week that I did an all-out V02 max treadmill workout last week, but I had a solid treadmill workout the week before that as well. About 2 weeks ago, I did a treadmill tempo 5K workout.

I warmed up for 1.75 miles (approximately, as my treadmill only shows TENTHS of a mile and not HUNDREDTHS of a mile), and then walked for about 0.25 miles.

Then I started the 5K effort as I cranked it up to 10.6 mph. I upped it again to 10.7 mph after a half mile, and 10.8 mph at the 1 mile mark. I wasn't sure I could keep speeding up (that wasn't really the goal... I just wanted to be fast), so I held 10.8 mph from mile 1 to about mile 2.4. Then up to 10.9 mph for about 0.3 miles, and then 11.0 mph for the final 0.4 miles.

My half-mile splits for the 3.1 miles looked like this:

2:50, 2:48, 2:46, 2:46, 2:46, 2:44, 0:32 = 17:15 (5:33.87/mile pace)

I had no goals, but I was happy with that!! I think I've been in the very low 17s for a treadmill 5K before, so now I have something to try to beat (much like my V02 max treadmill workout from last week). Maybe I'll try a similar "speed up strategy" next time I try a treadmill 5K, but maybe I'll try to keep everyone 0.1 mph faster - I think that'd put me around 17:05. With some decent training, I might shoot for sub-17 before the winter is over.

Pace looks right. HR is NOT correct!

It was later that day that my car didn't start (here's the post where I biked 15 miles in 15 degree temps to get it back), but we had a family Christmas the next day. And we were in charge of bringing veggies. So I grabbed my backpack and started jumping snow berms on the way to Aldi: