220 when I got up this morning and 216.5 after the morning run. Yesterday was 220 when I woke up and 218 after the morning run yesterday.
Yesterday’s run was 4.5 miles (1 lap – as per the schedule – did not go over scheduled miles like I have been doing – must be training hard when doing just what was on the schedule seems like I am letting myself down?) in 40:08 in a cool rain. Not a cold rain though which is nice, just cool. Thinking of cold rains on a run makes me think of the half marathon portion of the 2010 Goofy Challenge – the Donald Duck half on the Saturday that year had snow, freezing rain and just plain cold rain and may be the worst run I have ever had. I was feeling a bit run down and tired on just not feeling the running yesterday but then I saw another runner out wearing the Mickey / Disney World Marathon shirt from 2010 which perked me up – it put the cool rain in perspective and helped me break my mental barrier and push through the run. I felt like I was running slow on the run but my time on the lap was actually respectable, which is good.
It was interesting to see yet another Disney World Marathon runner out there yesterday – that makes twice in the past month I have seen different runners out in my neighbourhood wearing runDisney paraphernalia. These folks might have been from my neighbourhood directly or one of the nearby ones (considering the lengths training runs can get to) but it still is an interesting thing to look at statistically. Winnipeg’s not a huge city but I wonder if there is a higher percentage per capita of runDisney participants from the city than other areas? I can think of a lot worse reasons to use as an excuse to get out of Winnipeg in January than going and doing a race weekend in Disney World!
After I did my run yesterday, the wife and I decided we would do a bit of a road trip to Fargo to do some shopping and just to do something different. It was a rainy day in town and neither of us really wanted to tackle the house work – so we packed up the kids and headed south. We got some decent bargains on snow suits for the kids (winter is coming) and some decent prices on running shoes for myself and my wife. There is a $30 difference in the US versus Canada prices for the shoes I wear to run without any sales (which we actually managed to catch as well) – usually if we can catch a decent sale and I buy a couple pairs the price differential is enough to pay for our gas for the trip. Plus they seem to release a nicer colour palette of shoes in the US than they do in Canada for the type I wear – I don’t normally worry about what I look like when I run (because frankly at my size it is never going to look cool or be awe inspiring to watch) but putting on a butt ugly pair of runners before heading out on a cold morning can be soul crushing – a decent looking set of running shoes can actually give you a bit of push to get out the door. They are going to feel the same when running obviously but the importance of that little extra push to get you moving on a cold, dark morning, when you would rather be in bed, can’t be overstated.
So between eating out after the kids’ swimming lessons on Friday night and then the road trip yesterday my weight is up a touch, which I expected. I did watch what I was doing yesterday to make sure I didn’t oink on road snacks, etc but made sure to really enjoy supper out last night as it was a bit of cheat meal. I should have worked that meal off this morning and my hope is to hit a new low again Thursday morning this week.
Run today was pretty good – 13.1 miles in 2:02:45 – felt a bit tired out there at first but things settled in for a solid slow run pace – in fact this is the fastest I have done this distance in a training run since I started pushing myself last year around this time. I was kind of surprised as I felt that I was going a bit slow, and after the week of double runs and hard pushed race last weekend I expected to be slow as well. But I finished feeling good and felt like I could keep going. Awesome – I think that means the double runs are working and that I will need to continue them for a while. So I will give this week a go and evaluate again next weekend to see if I continue another week after that. That being said if something happens mid week that makes me need to re-evaluate earlier I will do so.
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