Now We're Rolling!

It took nearly a month but I finally feel like we're rolling with our training. Last week was the first full week in the last 4 weeks where I was able to run all 7 days and had great runs all week on top of that. It was all topped off with our long run on Sunday which shocked even me. We headed up to the Frisco Trail because we find that it is the best place to run where the wind seems to be blocked at least reasonably. Sometimes, when you start a run in the cold, you surprise yourself in the first mile or two. I think this is because the harder you run, the quicker you feel like your body warms up. So with that in mind, we started out down the Frisco Trail headed directly into a 10mph head wind with Temps still in the 30's. Thankfully, the trail turns towards the North which meant the wind would be a direct crosswind for the rest of the run. We crossed the mile mark with one of our fastest first miles in a long time (6:45ish) and then just continued on clipping off mile after mile under 6:50. If you've ever ran on the Frisco trail here in Springfield, you know that it's kind of like running in a tunnel between the trees until you arrive in Willard. At this point, we had to decide, 'venture out of our nice guarded wind tunnel' or 'turn around and create a couple out and backs' to get the 13 miles total we were seeking. We were running so good that we decided to take the chance and challenge the wind. We made it all the way across the open parts of Willard to our turn around at 6.5 miles away from the car. My only concern at this point is that it had been so easy on the way out that I thought we'd turn around and have to head into some sort of head wind.  However, one of the rarest things was happening. We made the turn around in Willard and started back, yet the wind didn't really feel any different. Kimi and I looked at one another with disbelief. Are we really having this good of a run and it's not wind aided? So right around mile 7, Kimi looked at me and said, do you want to "do some up-tempo work towards the end of the run?" I said, "well, let's see how we feel at mile 10." So we continued on, and just before the 10 mile mark, I asked Kimi if we were going to go up-tempo. I was thinking we were going to go up-tempo for the next two miles and then relax on the last mile. To my surprise, she said something about running a 6:35, 6:30, and then finishing with a 6:25 which would average us out to 6:30 for the final 3 miles. To put it simply, let's just say we crushed all three of those goal times.  It has been a long time since we have had a long run go like this. To be honest, it's been since last spring when I was training for the 2013 Grandma's Marathon. If this is a sign of what's to come this year, I can only imagine how the year might go.

OMRR Runner of the Year - Overall Category

Also, on Saturday night, we went to our first ever OMRR winter banquet.  As always, the food was great but the people were even better. We were fortunate to socialize with many people in our local running community. It was a lot of fun to listen to the different running stories and to learn more about the heritage of OMRR. I hope to meet many more people this year in our running community.

Week Mileage Goal: 53 Miles
Actual: 53 Miles