Temperature Variance

I woke up Wednesday to howling winds. Lying in bed I figured that running conditions would be "less than ideal". I gave myself the chance and walked downstairs to check the air temps. It read -9F. I then turned on the TV to hear the reported wind chills in the -35F to -40F! No way! No outside running for me. It was an easy recovery day and I decided to take a nice fat 0! The coffee was brewing in less than 5 minutes and I was content on my decision.

Total: 0 miles

Thursday the temps were a bit better but negative below zero wind chills were being reported. I put on my gear and repeated Tuesdays run with a bit of snaking the Hartley trails. I continued to be impressed with the running terrain that greets me every morning. One month left and those conditions will be gone, if not sooner.

I allowed my HR to creep up to 140 once again but for the most part I saw 135 bpm. My legs felt better than Tuesdays run and the breathing is just fine at that increased effort.

Total: 1:00:12 7.2 miles HR:133

Friday was a super recovery-style run that felt awesome. I love these ultra-slow runs and doing them on trails puts the icing on the cake. The temps are moving on up and the weekend running may not be so great off pavement. For the morning though I did a series of mini loops and crested the ultra-high altitudes of Baldy once. The air is so thin up there I can only squeeze on of these crests per week right now. Maybe two summits next week.

Total: 48:35 5.3 miles HR:126 bpm

Saturday gave us wake-up temperatures of 25F! Really? With all the snow the roads and trails were "fair" at best. I'm spoiled having the last three weeks of exceptional traction in the Hartley system but the roads are just not as good right now. Soon, that will be my only option and I'm OK with that, but right now the more trail running the better. I did a mixture of trails in Chester and Lakewalk snow covered terrain to make my loop home via the Tischer Creek trail. Another nice and easy run this morning.

Total: 55:40 6.4 miles