January 21st: Getting Ahead of the Curve

Oh. My. God. Did you hear? It's going to SNOW!!!! Do you have enough milk and bread? Are you watching for school closings EVERY MINUTE? Will New Jersey ever be the same after this?

Realistically, odds are I'm going to miss my mid-week "kinda long" run as a result of the weather. Consensus seems to be that we're going to see a foot in my area, and it's not going to stop until the overnight. Tomorrow's cardio will likely be shoveling, not running. My solution: Get ahead on miles today.

First off, I can't even describe how much of a difference a fresh pair of shoes made. My legs feel fantastic, despite 6 miles well ahead of race pace. My only complaint is in getting used to my stride, since the shoes tend to correct my under-pronation. Once I have that figured out, I'll be good to go.

So as I mentioned, I did 6 miles today, when I normally would have gone for 4. I went for a fast pace with negative splits. (And of course, I used a 0.5 percent incline). I started at 6.3, but quickly cranked up to 6.5. From there, I kept ticking up a bit every few minutes; at the very end, I was at an 8:13 pace. Overall, I did the 6 in 52:18, which is an 8:43 pace -- 26 seconds below race pace. I probably could have done a bit more, but I don't want to overdo it on the week's first run -- plus I have to, you know, work.

Two things I've been thinking about lately:

• Stuff like this weather forecast underscores, for me, the importance of mileage. Ultimately, my fitness level is going to be determined in large part by how many overall miles I'm able to log -- without injury, of course. It's still the middle of January, and there will be many more opportunities for Mother Nature to screw with my training schedule. So that was a strong reason for my going to 6 miles today. Also, I'm very cognizant of overtraining -- and in particular, of ramping up gradually -- but the guy who safely does 50 miles a week is simply going to be more fit than the guy who does 35.
• If you haven't noticed, I'm really starting to like the idea of negative splits. One thing I really didn't enjoy during the half marathon in October was watching people I'd already passed go by me in the last few miles. And, though I do have an overall time goal in mind for the marathon, one major goal for me is to do the second half faster than the first. I've been working on this in my training runs, but I won't know for sure if this is realistic until I get into the seriously long runs in March.

Well, we'll see what the rest of the week holds for me. I don't know if I'll just skip tomorrow's run or juggle the whole week. I also have to work on Sunday afternoon and evening, so I can't really push my long to Sunday if I decide to juggle.

Total miles since starting the blog: 258.8