To the Track

I seem to be overly fond of the letter "t," at least when it comes to post titles. Whoops. Deal with it.

Workout: 5 miles around an ice rink

I really, really wanted to run outside today. I had my stuff all ready to go, silenced any fear/doubts about the 10-degree weather, and was dressed to go outside. I even had my garmin on! But then I looked down, saw I wasn't wearing any pants, and proceeded to look for them in my bag. They weren't there. Left them on my floor at home. #typicaljean

I wanted to avoid another treadmill run at all costs, so I decided to seek out a fabled track at my school. I stripped off my 600 layers, put on some shorts (my subconscious must have known I wasn't actually going to make it outside), and went to go ask about it.

After a confusing conversation with the "student fitness attendant", it donned on me that there wasn't really a track, but that I could run around the ice rink. Okay then. I didn't take any pictures of it because it was butt ugly. See here for a reenactment.

There was a helpful sign letting me know that 9 1/2 laps was a mile, and with that, I set off!

Counting laps is a bitch. Such a pain in the ass. I literally had to keep track of them on my fingers. At one point, a hot athlete sort was doing a weird jogging exercise towards me, and I'm pretty sure he thought I was giving him a thumbs up. Nope, buddy, just counting my laps. Call me sometime.

Anyway, despite my less than scenic route (read: small, boring as shit ice rink), this run went well. Really well. Lately I've really wanted to push my speed (note that my definition of "speed" is different from most people's). No more of this 10:30 mile shit. That was well and good for marathon training, when I was just hoping to finish the thing (spoiler: I broke my foot and didn't finish it. Didn't even run it), but now I want to go faster. I also think that since I've been intentionally seeking out the hilliest places I can possibly run, when I get on flat ground I want to speed things up a bit.

I wasn't sure how far I was going to go, but once I got moving I decided I was going to run for as long as I could (which was actually only about 50 minutes because I had to go take a test). I set off at a comfortable pace and kept it the entire time. I guess I even sped up for the third and fourth mile.

My splits:

9:29
9:27
9:42 (includes about twenty seconds of drinking water/stretching)
8:58
10:35

Average: Too lazy to calculate. 9:something

I busted out four quick-ish miles and was desperate to do a bit of barefoot-it's probably a defense mechanism in response to wearing the tanks. So I took my shoes off and did another mile. Barefoot is always slower (in fact, minimalist shoes are much slower in general-I believe this is a widely-shared experience), and I wanted to do a cooldown mile, which is my long-winded way of explaining that last mile.

Like I said, this felt good. Dare I say great? I'm at 10 miles for the week which, although pathetic, isn't bad considering I've also had a day of cross training and a day of hiking. I'm still planning to hit 15. Maybe 2 or so tomorrow just cuz (I find that I usually don't do anything on Fridays-not planned, probably just because of general exhaustion), and 3 on Sunday after what promises to be an incredible hike on Saturday. A solid week of training! For what, you ask? Dunno. TBD.

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On a side note - is anyone else as grossed as I am out by the heinous Whole Food warm bar concoctions bloggers seem so fond of? Guys, that shit is nasty. I mean, just because something tastes good by itself doesn't mean they will taste good together. Like, oh, there's some pesto, I like that, and some orange chicken, I'll have some of that too, and while we're at it, Thanksgiving turkey, Greek yogurt, tuna, sauerkraut, and chocolate sauce to top it off!!!! Delish!!!!!! No. Disgusting. Puke. I bring this up because Carrots 'n Cake lady had a picture of hers in a post earlier today. Nothing against her, I'm a fan of her blog, but that combination looks disgusting. Count me out. I'll be over here eating the meatiest pizza I can find.

An outtake from yesterday's hike, because I can:

Happy trails, my friends