February 6, 2012

First run since January 31.

If I remember correctly, February 1 would have been a good day to run. It had rained early in the day. The sun was shining the rest, getting the temperature to 70 degrees. When I got home from work about 5:00 pm, the sun was still up, and the temp was still in the 60's. I JUST COULDN'T GET MYSELF TO RUN.

The next few days were dreary. They made me feel dreary, so I did not run.

I tried to wait for perfect - sunshine, no wind, comfortable temperature - weather over the weekend. It never got to what I wanted, so I did not run.

Finally, after a 6 day layoff, I ran. I got out the door about 5:15 pm. It was 42 degrees and the sun was falling fast, but there was hardly a breeze. As I neared the river just over 1.5 miles, it felt like it got much cooler and the wind became more noticeable. Under 3 miles into the run, the wind began to get to me. My hands began to feel like frostbite was setting in. It only got worse. What was a very little breeze in the beginning was now a constant wind that I had to run directly into for about a mile. Feeling it from the side was not too pleasant either. I decided to cut my run from 6 to 5 miles.

Cutting the run short saved bad from getting worse. It took me 49:04, a pace of 9:49 to complete 5 miles. I wouldn't be so disappointed if it were not for me being able to comfortably run 4 to 6 milers around 9:00 just a couple of weeks ago. Now, I'm afraid of how much conditioning I've lost. (And how much more I'm going to lose if the weather doesn't get better. There have been some nice days, but I leave for work too early and get home too late for the nice warm sunshine.) Also, contributing to the disappointment, is that I was trying to run hard. I was wanting to get the run over with.