I was following the tradition I established last year: get in 13 miles the day of the LPR10 with warm up, race, and cool down; take Monday-Friday off; and then run 17 miles the following Saturday on the TNT North --- making a pumpkin purchase from the Amish farmers market afterward.

Joe, is it still the 5th metatarsal? How difficult does that make it to run at all ... or walk? Are you devising a cross training regimen? Yet I suppose the big question is, are you actually still planning to run the Philly Marathon? It's less than 4 weeks away! Meanwhile I hope that Phil's logging silence isn't an indication that he's also having difficulties.

I think you'd have to have some monstrous mileage under your belt to be able to write off a marathon as a "healthy easy run".

Sara may have been correct that my 200m mark cone (originally found laying on the ground near the tennis courts) should've been placed slightly further down the track. Look at my first 8 splits:

The 200m recoveries that measured 0.12 were those run from the white line to the cone, whereas those measuring 0.13 were run from the cone to the white line. Of course this didn't affect my actual 400m intervals, as those were always a full lap from the white line back to the white line or from the cone back to the cone. It just meant that some of my recovery periods were slightly briefer than others.

Perry is just over a week away from the 1000th day of his running streak --- and it seems only fitting that he would have to prove his mettle through one more hurricane to reach that 1000th day milestone. Tuesday evening is when things look to be the most frightful, with cold (a high of only 47 that day), heavy rain and winds gusting over 50mph. I, meanwhile, will be stocking up on batteries for my elliptical (not a huge deal since it will be a race taper week anyway).

What if Perry were to take today off just to spite it all?

Phil: Well, at least you have a plan and hopefully the inspiration will carry you forward. I was wondering, as you apparently fell into Joe-loggian mode.

Joe: How did the moving and the foot pain go, this weekend?

And here's a refresher on why one should avoid persisting with a track workout in the midst of a November nor'easter.

posted: 11/12/2009 at 10:18 AM
modified: 11/12/2009 at 10:25 AM

Darkness, hastened by the dreary skies, descended upon the St. Mary's College campus just after 5 p.m. yesterday evening. Scarce few students were seen out of doors as the icy, wind-strewn rain continued to fall in soaking spurts into the night. And those unlucky enough to have to venture outside trudged determinedly, bent forward against the chilling, wet gusts with arms crossed over chests and hoods pulled down low. Or huddled together in pairs beneath inadequate umbrellas. Some students even broke into spontaneous sprints to escape the nasty weather, or just to dodge puddle sprays from headlight-glaring, passing cars. There was one individual, however, who moved faster than all the rest --- but who made no attempt to seek shelter indoors. This foolhardy person, clad in a shirt of ghostly white, flitted in and out of the dull, distant street lamp beams like a watery wraith as he rushed around and around the otherwise deserted, half-flooded track. Passerbys who got a close view of this nocturnal rain runner looked at him as though he must be deranged. Whether or not they were correct in their surmises, they couldn't have possibly comprehended just how morbidly miserable he was.

This is how my spectacularly soggy, awfully abbreviated workout went:

*2-mile warm up, across campus (I made it almost a quarter mile before stepping ankle-deep into a puddle)

*4 X 800:

-2:57

-2:55

-3:00

-2:55

*1-mile cool down, on track

 

The track really was partially flooded. On the parking lot side, between the first two turns, the hard surface was submerged all the way out to the third lane. And the steeple chase pit? It wasn't just overflowing with water --- it was the center of a veritable lake (I can just imagine some brazen running newcomer, unfamiliar with the SMCM track, splashing along through the first lane in defiance of the deep puddles before plunging straight into the murky, bottomless steeple pit). There was still some faint, enduring daylight left when I began the first 800, and at that point I didn't think it'd be too heinous to quickly bang out six succinct 800s. However, it was pure night by the time I began the second 800, and upon concluding that interval, my 100% cotton shorts and boxers were soaked through and through, making them stick and get bunched up in my groin area, which caused much chafing. So then and there I decided that persevering through four more 800s in these conditions would be a wet nightmare, and that I'd call it quits after two more. Well, failing to break 3:00 on the third 800 gave me great guilt over truncating the workout (keep in mind that I was forced to run in the middle lane during much of each lap). Yet after 800 the fourth --- upon which I discovered that my entire backside was covered in cold, grainy mud --- all my doubts about abbreviation were extinguished. I could sense that I was being endangered of pneumonia. And though I would've given anything to do my one-mile cool down inside the adjacent gym upon a treadmill, I had no choice but to persist on the accursed track, even as the wind and rain intensified. Thus I amassed a modest five miles for the day, all of which was completed by 5:45 p.m.

What made things particularly miserable for me yesterday was my poor planning. I didn't even have a sweatshirt. All I'd packed to run in were shorts and a thin, longsleeve Under Armor-type shirt (it cuts the wind well on a cold, dry day, but is rendered fairly useless once it's sopping wet --- as it was by the end of my warm up yesterday). Thank goodness I decided to bring along my Jingle Bell headband at the last minute! I also brought that Komen Race for the Cure longsleeve T-shirt as something dry to change into after running, so I'd be comfortable for the long drive home. Foolishly, however, I wore it over the technical shirt during the warm up, so it was still quite soggy when I went into the campus bathroom to change. And that was where I realized how heinously the elements had afflicted me. I was getting the shakes bad, and my hands were so numb that I couldn't even make a proper cupping motion when I went to splash myself off with warm water in the sink. The weather forecast is largely to blame: it claimed the temperature would be 53 degrees with a feels like of 47 at 5 p.m. --- but it was actually 47 degrees with a feels like closer to 40 at that time.

Neither Phil nor Joe made an appearance. I'd had doubts about Phil showing up after his wary forum post yesterday, but I figured Joe, who's become so dedicated that he ran 29 consecutive days without respite, wouldn't let something as trivial as the elements prevent him from running at SMCM. But now I see that he was aqua running (I'd say I was also aqua running yesterday, even though I wasn't in a pool). I'm very curious to find out where Joe performed this exotic workout, as I'm fairly certain the Ab Crest pool has been closed down for the winter by now. Anyways, yesterday was ultimately highly frustrating. That was a whole lot of misery to go through for a paltry workout that likely won't contribute much to my race improvement. And it looks like I'll yet again be denied a four-day running streak, as the wind and rain have only gotten worse (I'm electing to use the elliptical tonight). At least I don't have a raging cold today like I thought I would for sure! [Except I did soon come down with an awful cold.]