The furthest I have run

...in 2009. 14 miles today, and it was tough.
I didn't get a lot of sleep, and I woke up with sniffles. I jogged to run club a bit late, just in time to link up with them as they were leaving, and I was so out of it that I ended up running with the fast group for a while. Occasionally this happens, usually when I'm tired and so a 10 minute mile or whatever doesn't feel that much better than an 8 minute one or whatever, so I might as well get it over with. Then it catches up with me. After about six miles of that, I started feeling tired. The pace wasn't especially fast, maybe 8:20/mile, but a lot of it was on snow and it was sort of cold, and, eh....so I hung in there until my Garmin said 10 miles (9 miles with them) and then I thanked them and headed back on rather tired legs. I ended up running on the Canal for a while, and it was funny how much cooler that felt. Makes sense because the thing is one big ice cube. We're in the fridge now!

In total, I ran 14 miles.

Maybe running the nine faster miles wasn't the best strategy, but it was a good wakeup call. I don't expect to PB at the Hypo 1/2, but it would be cool to PB on the course, at least, conditions permitting, in which case I'll have to move a bit faster than the 10-11 min/mile I seem to usually do these days. Albeit, on snow...hopefully there won't be much at the Hypo 1/2. Will see. Anyway, I'm glad I had a good somewhat hard run today. Now I feel like I'm training again.

It would be nice to run 16 miles next Sunday....will see. I need to get in one long-long run before the Winterman marathon, probably Feb 1 or 8. I'm going to try to stick to 50ish miles a week for January (won't taper much for the Hypo 1/2). February will bring longer long runs and more speedwork, so the mileage will creep up without me fussing much over it.