The second week of brutally cold weather, plus a major winter storm as a bonus! Even for Connecticut in January, this weather is awful. The running is going pretty well even though winter is definitely starting to wear me down.
Monday, 1/1, Morning Crew – Yoga 
Monday is generally a swim day for me, but with it being New Year’s, the pool was closed. I had thought to throw in an easy run to kick off the new year, but Coach Mick advised against that. I ran a lot of miles last week and plenty coming up this week, so yoga it was. I started 2017 with a solo yoga workout after cleaning the cat vomit off my mat. Highly symbolic of how things were going a year ago. This year, though, I had excellent company with both Snarky Girl and Olivia in our playroom “studio”.
Tuesday, 1/2, Afternoon Crew – 10 miles, tempo intervals
I peeked ahead to this workout at some point last week thinking, oh, next Tuesday won’t be that big of a deal. Um, no such luck. Seven 1 mile repeats with two at marathon pace, three at half marathon pace, two at 10K pace, plus warm up and cool down. Really? Apparently really. My schedule is still flexible so I worked early in the morning and ran in the late afternoon to take advantage of the warmest time of the day. The first two marathon pace repeats were a bit off (one too fast, one too slow…), but then I stopped looking at my watch and totally nailed the rest of the workout. Interesting. I could not possibly be happier with how this went!
Wednesday, 1/3, Lunch Time Crew – 4 easy miles (9:31 pace), plus strength training
Running from the gym, as per usual. It was sixteen degrees when I ran. I wondered if I was losing my mind to still be outside but I knew even worse weather was on the way. Followed the run with a great lifting session with Tough Guy Trainer.
Thursday, 1/4, Morning Crew – Goal pace run, 1 mile warm up, 8 at marathon pace
The “bomb cyclone” storm hit today and drove me inside at last. 9 miles on the treadmill with 8 at marathon pace is not fun. At all. I listened to the album “All Day” by Girl Talk, recommended by High Power Running Mentor #1 and that got me through most of it. I didn’t take in any fuel, which was probably an error, but whatever. Today was kind of about survival and I survived.
Friday, 1/5, Morning Crew – 5 easy miles (10:10 pace)
5 miles at 10 degrees with 14 mph wind and crappy road conditions the day after yesterday’s treadmill extravaganza meant that this did not feel entirely “easy”. However, Snarky Girl was game for coming along and she had fun hurdling the snow drifts and outside beats inside except when the “bomb cyclone” is actively raging so I got it done.
Saturday, 1/6, Morning Crew – swim, then strength training
Snarky Girl came with for swimming as well. What would I do without her? We had a nice swim. Lifting was just so-so. I have kind of had it with the weather. I did go get new shoes today and spent a great afternoon playing Agricola with Aidan. My new winter weather plan is Agricola and whisky all day, every day. Not sure that will help with my marathon project though….
Sunday, 1/7, Afternoon Crew – 5 miles, Mixed fartlek run
I moved my long run this week to tomorrow when the weather is finally supposed to break. I spent some of today watching the weather app and waiting for the warmest moment to go run, which turned out to be 14 degrees and 6 mph wind. Woot. Luckily, I love this workout, which is just hard/easy for equal amounts of time, with the intervals getting shorter and shorter. I was happy to get out of the house and at least as happy to get back in the house. We are in hunker down mode.
Total: 33 miles