Running in the dark

6am and out the door, shorts and t-shirt. Running in the dark. The tuesday morning route is actually pretty well lit with the exception of my street and the short stretch of bike path. The rest could be done in the middle of the night. Well strike that. I forgot about the Beach section and the Stairs. Those sections were pretty dark and by the time I got to the stairs the sky was getting just light enough to illuminate the dark wet wood of the sprint work section. That's the downside of running along a west facing shoreline. Still it was good hard lung burning work.

odd having the temps at 48°F bright and early on November 24th.

Got the girls out the door and suited up. Knee warmers and shoes were right were I left them from last nights ride home in the pouring rain. And they were soaked.

So I went with no knee warmers and wet shoes. Gloves were soaked too, so bare handed the ride in. It wasn't raining but on the run i felt a vicious headwind. Running into a headwind sucks more than riding into one.

Slathered up the legs with a bit of the top coat oil (nothing added to it) for the ride in. And said screw it and just hammered. Coach has an hour of Z3 with 10 150m sprints for this afternoon. I don't know if i can get a continuous hour of Z3 but I can probably book it home at Z3 and hook up the trainer and hit the balance of the remainder of the hour at the intensity on the trainer and then add the 150m sprints. Which I think might work out to being about 10-15second efforts. Feel free to correct me, i'm usually wrong and my intervals are all time based, i have no bike computer, no power meter, no nothing. And yeah, time based meaning I use the iPod on the trainer to keep track of the work out/intervals by making a playlist for what ever the work out is supposed to be.

I haven't done an interval outside yet, besides the longer 20-30minute ones that are incorporated into the commute. Yeah. I don't do the outside interval thing. For some reason I prefer the tunes and the predictability of the trainer. It more closely approximates a race course. Training on the road you have to be constantly aware of what's going on, and I just can't turn that mental focus off except on the trainer and on the cross course.

So anyway - i have a few more thoughts and comments about Lowell and Battenkill, but i'll save those for later.

heddwch
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