It's curious how unseasonably warm weather can wipe away memories of being chilled. I can't quite recall which days last week were particularly cold.

DR - My 20 mile run is schedueld for this Saturday. I ran 16 miles in my neighborhood this past Saturday, and felt very banged up afterwards. Running over 15 miles is very reiminiscent of when I was trying to consistently get over the 10 mile threshold early last year. I just feel very banged up afterwards. My goal for the marathon is anything but concrete. Ideally I would finish in under 4 hours, but that's not looking likely. I've probably missed too many workouts due to inclement weather and just overall darkness of winter. I'll probably aim to run at a 9:09/mi pace (roughly 4 hour marathon pace, I believe), and then just treat the second half as a learning experience of what to expect for future marathons. Speaking of future marathons, I'm all but ready to confirm a half marathon for the fall. Marathon training is way too time-consuming when I throw class and school work in the mix. Perhaps I'll make my return to the event sometime in 2011 or 2012.

I know some people are all about going out and running shirtless in freezing temperatures, but I'm not one of them. Winter marathon training has been a pretty miserable existence. I can only imagine doing it three years in a row.

Last night, in my neighborhood, I slogged through an agonizingly long interval workout. Though I managed to get home a minute or two before 4 p.m. and begin my warm up by 4:40, it was 6:15 p.m. by the time I completed my cool down. The running began under practically full daylight and ended under the darkness of night! I did no less than 11 intervals, adding up to five miles in length. This is how it went: 800, 800, 800, 800, 400, 800, 400, 800, 800, 800, 800. In simpler terms, 9 X 800 with 2 X 400 squeezed in the middle. Once again following the Yasso school of thought, I ran each 800 between 3:20 and 3:27 --- except for the eighth 800, which took 3:33 (I was suffering a bit by that point). And oh my, the wind was supremely savage. I was running against a steady 30 mph stream for much of the workout. It was indeed a windfall (pun intended) that the temperature was over 60, as anything under 50 would've made the wind gusts decidedly debilitating. Anyways, including a 1.5-mile warm up and a 0.5-mile cool down, I had seven miles for the day. A light six-mile run tonight will take me up to 26 miles for the week (I did seven on Monday and six on Tuesday), and then it will just be a simple matter of running 24 miles on Saturday to give me a grand weekly total of 50 --- my highest ever!

Yes, Wednesday was nothing compared to last night. I was buffeted barbarically by belligerent blasts of breeze! Gusts were definitely hitting or even exceeding 50 mph. As darkness descended (I didn't finish my six-mile run until 6:30 p.m.), I truly feared trees falling over left and right. Rick: you said you're doing 20 this weekend, so does that mean you'll be running 10 the day before? That seemed to be your strategy awhile back.

Yeah, I'd probably rather run 30 miles in one morning than 10 miles on a Friday night followed by 20 less than 24 hours later. On an uplifting note, it seems the forecast for tomorrow has greatly improved. Earlier in the week they called for a Saturday high of 39 degrees with a wintry mix of rain and snow. But now the high is supposed to be in the mid to upper 40s, with no precipitation to worry about.

Today I ran a marathon --- minus merely 2.2. miles, that is. My knees are brittle, my feet are tender, my quads are sore, my face is wind-chapped and sunburned, and my area below the waistline that's most sensitive to chafing is ... eh, let's not go there. But all that aside, I feel triumphant. I got down to the Historic St. Mary's City Visitor Center parking lot (where people congregate for the Thanksgiving Prediction Run/5k Race) just after 9:30 a.m. Meanwhile Joe, whose commute was about 40 minutes shorter than mine, was already there waiting. Per my guidance, we began things in a curious fashion: by walking. It was my fancy, nay, my dream to make the U-turn of my out-and-back run at the very tip of Point Lookout, which happens the mark the utter end of this peninsular county's land. Yet since I measured, via mapmyrun.com, the distance from the visitor center parking lot to the Point Lookout Lighthouse turnaround to be over 12 miles (yet under 13), I decided we should start out over where Rosecroft Rd junctions with Rt. 5. Thus we walked back out the way we'd driven in for about a third of a mile before beginning our run at the above mentioned starting spot. Joe was my running companion for four miles --- one sixth of my overall run --- before he turned back, as eight miles was his worthy goal for the day. Running abreast, our pace averaged about 9:45/mi, which was fine by me. I knew that easing into the run at a relaxed pace would only benefit me further down the road. Much, much, much further down the road. After we bid adieu at the four-mile point, I dropped the pace down to 8:45-9:15/mi and, mentally, settled into a sort of autopilot mode as I cruised through downtown Ridge. The next thing I knew, the shoulders of the road came to an end and, right before my eyes, was the old Trossbach produce stand! It was closed up and vacant for the winter, however, and no familiar farmers were in sight. Moments later I passed by the towering, phallic Civil War monument and, immediately after that, I beheld the new, controversial Confederate Memorial Park. The Southern Sympathizers got their way! And then came the turnoff for Point Lookout State Park. Running right along the wide, visibly endless gray-blue and surprisingly tranquil (the wind seemed to be holding its breath) Chesapeake Bay --- via the boulder-bordered causeway leading to the recreation sections of the park --- under a silver-cloudy sky was inspiring. Soon, however, it became apparent that I was going to hit 12 miles at least half a mile before the lighthouse. Well I pressed on anyways, convincing myself that, though the out-and-back flow of the run would be skewered, this was too rare a running opportunity to pass up. And finally there it was, the destiny of this run: the old Point Lookout Lighthouse (more like an austere house with a lighthouse jutting through its roof. It's an infamous hot, er, creepily cold spot for paranormal investigators and amateur ghost hunters). I forgot how eerie that place looks --- especially on overcast winter days when that whole end of the park is utterly deserted ... save for me, the lone runner. So I circled the turnaround loop counterclockwise, passing by the chain-linked, barbed-wire gates of the lighthouse at 12.5 miles exactly. Yes, that effectively added another mile to my out-and-back course, but I decided to worry about that later (I did briefly entertain the notion of simply running a full 25 miles --- but quickly came to my senses). Things started getting unpleasant as I fled from the lighthouse, beginning the "back" segment of the run. I was seized by a series of sneezing fits, coupled with a runny nose. And then a pitter patter of light yet cold precipitation began to fall. Oh, and my fingers, though protected by two layers of gloves (laytex inner, knit outer), started throbbing with numbing iciness. It was time for a break, so just before mile 15 --- right after exiting the park --- I "pulled over" and did the GU (ok, PowerGel). I'm getting hooked on it! Things improved immensely once I was back on Rt. 5. The sun came out, and soon I was warm to the point of getting sweaty. To help the miles flow by, I covered my watch with my sleeve. As they say, a watched pot never boils and a watched Forerunner ... watch never gets to the finishing distance. Moving along, I think it was shortly after my second brief break at mile 21 that I encountered the first fellow runner on the road I'd seen since Joe's departure (by that point, my "warm up" with Joe seemed like a distant memory). I gave a courteous nod --- and he, quickly establishing himself as a jerk runner, just glared and passed me by. How rude! Well, as I collected myself during my third and final respite at a bit past mile 23 (breaks two and three were both taken judiciously upon achieving the summits of long slopes), I looked back the way I'd just run and saw that that cold-hearted runner (he looked like he might be a member of the SMCM Cross Country Club) had made a U-turn and was on my trail, poised to overcome me within a couple minutes. I couldn't let that happen! Thus, in a fearful yet furious frenzy, I aborted the break and took off running at a mad pace than ranged from sub-8:00/mi to virtually sub-7:00/mi! I figured it would be good training for achieving a fast finish in the actual marathon --- and somehow I still had the energy for it. Less than a mile after taking flight, I hit 24 miles and brought the run to a screeching halt. I didn't care if the rogue runner passed me after I started walking --- I just didn't want to get humiliatingly passed during the course of my actual run (which he never came close to doing). Anyways, I concluded 24 miles in 3:34:41(8:57/mi ... that's right, sub-9:00/mi!). Beating that time should be my bottom-line goal for the marathon. So I was pleased with my performance, yes, but now I found myself in a real predicament: I had to walk 1.33 miles up the road to get to my car! Let me tell you. It was like a POW death march to Saigon --- a veritable Trail of Tears. Sometimes I thought I was going to stumble and roll helplessly into the ditch, and though it took him like 10 minutes, that no-nod runner (more like jogger) eventually overtook me as I staggered along. It was all still worth it, though, to have run to the ends of the earth, er, county --- and back again.