7 weeks straight (Day 49)

 Running streak has hit 49 days today... that's 7 straight weeks without a break.  

My last two days I've actually gotten outside for the forth and fifth time this year!

The weather was particularly cold this year and the timing of the weather patterns was fairly unlucky with the coldest and windiest days falling on the weekend and the tolerable days happening during the work week.  Right now I'm regretting not forcing myself out a few more times.  Last year I was out in 10 degrees when my treadmill broke so I don't have a great excuse... I was just being a wimp this year.  It's hard though when the choice is between suffering on the cold, windy, gloomy, icy roads or binging Ozarks in the comforts of your own home on a treadmill.

Now that I'm getting outside again, I'm awakening to the reality that while treadmill miles are a pretty damn close facsimile to running outside, they just aren't 100% the same.  Take yesterday, case and point.

The girls had some early basketball so I saved my run for the afternoon.  By then it was upper 40s and sunny.  I actually got to run in a shorts and t-shirt and felt great.  Almost perfect running weather really (minus the 15 mph wind which wasn't actually that bad since it was a warm day).

I was really excited to finally be out on a nice day and took off too fast.  Ran the first mile in 6:38.  I actually felt reasonably comfortable... like tempo effort.  Wasn't breathing too hard but my HR was fast approaching 160.  Kept pushing mile 2 and ran an even fast 6:33 mile... still relatively comfortable but HR was up to mid 160s.  By the 3rd mile I was starting to slow and pushed to hit 6:42.  After 3 miles I let up a bit but then picked it back up... I finished with a 7:04 split.  I kept going but kept slowing, 5th mile 7:14, 6th mile 7:31 HR still at 165.  At mile 6 I stopped and walked for about 15 seconds and tried to loosen up my left ITB and hip.  Nothing serious going on but there were definitely some muscles in my legs that were not used to working so hard. I walked a bit more at mile 6.5 and wound up with a 8:01 split for 7th mile.  Then rallied and ran a 7:08 for the last mile.

Final Stats:
8 miles
56:54
7:06 pace

Maybe I would have been able to run slightly faster if I didn't start off so hard.  Kind of sucked slowly dying (in all honesty I never felt like I was working too hard and my effort was consistent, I just kept slowing down and my legs felt like trash).

Got back on the road this morning for 5 easy miles at 8:22 pace.  Felt some general fatigue in the legs and hips especially but nothing alarming and the run went well.  It was 34 degrees but sunny and no wind so if felt pretty darn good.  

Right now I feel like I can run forever on the treadmill at low effort but I'm not used to the balancing and pounding of the road.   Looks like another spell of sucky weather coming... I might have to force myself out for at least one day during that time... really need to get my road legs back in order.   Got a 5K coming up in 19 days that I'm not totally optimistic about.  Would like to get an interval session in or two before then to get my legs ready for the pace but I'm not sure I'm up for it yet and also don't want to get hurt.  I think I'm mostly in pretty good shape right now though so maybe with a couple more weeks of work I'll surprise myself.