Monday, January 16 – Sweet Gum out & back – 5 miles – I got the week off to a good start with five miles this morning. I slept in a little bit so I only needed the headlamp for the first few minutes before there was enough light to shut it off. Crisp morning, probably about 35 around seven when I left the house. I had originally intended to go up to Toccoa, GA to run up Currahee Mountain, but that plan got side tracked by having to go to the office for a few hours. I’ll have to devote a whole post to Currahee when I do get back up there for a run in the next couple weeks. It’s a six mile run along the Col. Sink trail that climbs to the top of the mountain. It was made famous by the men of E company of the 506th airborne division who trained there prior to WWII. I ran it once last year and even though the summit has radio and cell towers it’s still a very cool run.
Tuesday, January 17 – Ivy Creek Greenway – 3 miles – I had originally planned to head up to the Chicopee Woods mountain bike trails after work, but since the trails close at 6:30 and I didn’t leave work until 6 I had to settle for a run from the apartment. Honestly I only got out the door to avoid a zero for the day. This was a headlamp run, but the light ran mixed with some fog because of the warm temperature, visibility was an issue. After about two minutes out on the paved section of the greenway I decided to turn this into an impromptu short tempo run. I hit end of the pavement (switches to gravel) in five-flat which is about a minute faster than I usually do. I kept the pace up until the turnaround at the first overpass then I slowed because I’m still not in great shape yet. I managed to pick it up again for the final 600 or so of the gravel path before bringing it home in under 19 minutes for what I’ll call three-ish miles. It felt good to put a little more effort into the run, even if it was just a result of being frustrated with having to run later and shorter than I wanted to, oh well at least it wasn’t a zero.
Wednesday, January 18 – Sweet Gum out & back – 5 miles – Chased the daylight on this run. I had originally planned on going to Chicopee or Gainesville state to hit the mountain bike trails, but it ended up being colder out than I had anticipated so I had to grab my hat and gloves and run from the house. Nothing special about this run, I was just glad to get five in after having to settle for three the night before. I did cut it a little close though and probably need to stick to AM runs until we get a little bit more daylight.
Thursday, January 19 – Sweet Gum out & back – 5 miles – Woke up at 6:15 and was out the door around 15 minutes later. Cold and dark, needed the headlamp for more of the run than I had expected but it was still a nice run. I had a few weird steps where the ground was a little lower than I thought but other than that avoided any disasters. I think running with the headlamp is actually going to help me with my trail racing this year, as its forcing me to adjust were I look when I’m running. Normally, my eyes are forward and slightly down, looking probably 10-15 feet ahead of me. Last year I noticed when racing on the trails I needed to look closer to where my feet were falling to avoid some of the roots and rocks on the tight single track trails. Because of where the light is most effective, I’m starting to have a similar change in where I’m looking on these headlamp runs. This may or may not make sense, but I feel like it does so I’m going with it.
Friday, January 20 – Ivy Creek Greenway – 5 miles – Miserable run…cold, wet and dark. I put on the headlamp and headed out on the greenway trail (paved/crushed gravel). The persistent rain made the sweet gum trail a little bit nasty for headlamp run so I decided to switch it up and go with the more consistent surface of the greenway. Sometimes you just have to get your miles in…even if its only five.
Saturday, January 21 – Sweet Gum out & back – 5 miles – I initially planned to go out to Heritage park to check out the course for the first Dirty Spokes race in a couple of weeks but we had heavy rain and thunderstorms all morning long. Since the race is on a mountain bike trail and most mountain bike trails close during/after rain and I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of one of these bright yellow/red thunderstorms I decided to bag it and just run from home. Ran the standard out and back five.
Sunday, January 22 – Harbins Park x2 - 10 miles – After missing out on getting 10 in yesterday, I went to Harbins Park and ran two loops of the hiking trail to get 10 miles in before the Pats game. The loop is roughly 4.5 miles of trail with a half-mile of paved multi-use trail from the parking lot to the trailhead. This was a nice run, comfortable temperature and the trails weren’t too wet. I felt a little sluggish but it was the longest run I’ve done since, probably our trip to Seattle in the fall. I need to get a couple of 7-10 mile runs in over the next two weeks to get ready for the Heritage Park race. I’m not really in any kind of shape to race it up if I can get a couple of runs in to get used to running for 50 minutes to an hour to get my lets used to that I think I’ll be able to at least be in the chase pack depending on who shows up. I’d also like to get in a couple of tempo runs before then.
Weekly Totals – 38 miles on seven runs – Another good week. I know the mileage isn’t much at this point, but it’s about getting in the runs. Next week I want to keep my mileage around 40 but work in a tempo run either during the week or on Saturday morning. The first race is coming up quick and I need to start doing a few runs at a higher effort level. Last year I tried to run most of the trail races at or around 6 minute pace. I don’t think that’s going to happen over eight miles in just a couple weeks but we’ll see what happens.
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