Winter Running

If you hadn't heard, the Northeast was slated for (and received) a fair bit of winter weather this past weekend.  You may recall from my schedule that I posted the other day, that I try to do my long runs on the weekends.  Since the blizzard of 2016 was going to hit Friday - Sunday, I knew that the long weekend run was out this week.  Luckily, we had several days notice for this storm so I was able to switch my schedule around a bit and fit in (almost) all my runs.

I managed to squeeze in a 9 miler after work on Wednesday, a 6 mile run after work on Thursday, and a 6 mile run Friday morning before the storm.  I had already run 4 on Monday, so that brought my week total to 25 miles, definitely shy of my planned 33.

I spent most of Saturday doing chores around the house.  I accomplished a lot, but didn't get in any cardio or exercise of any type.  So when I woke up on Sunday to find that the snow had stopped, I was hopeful that I might be able to get a run in.  Here's the winter wonderland I woke up to that morning - so pretty!

After a lazy morning of coffee, waffles, and chores, I ventured outside to see if a run was doable.  To my happy surprise, my street and the main neighborhood roads had been somewhat cleared.  There was still ice and snow on the roads, but it was compact - perfect for my YaxTrax.  I received my YaxTrax (traction cleats for running in the snow/ice) a few years ago, but hadn't had the opportunity to try them out yet.  Here's what they look like on my shoes:

After figuring out how to put them on and doing a brief test walk on the snow, I headed out for a 5 mile run.  Between dodging snow piles, walkers, sledders, and 4WD vehicles, it was a little slow going, but it still felt great to be outside in the fresh air.  I ran painfully slow (even slower than my normal MAF method training), but I put the miles in and made it to an even 30 miles for this week.

It looks like the weather is going to cooperate better the rest of this week.  Let's see if I can fit in all my runs (35 miles) and most importantly, make it to the gym this weekend to run my third MAF test to see if I've made any progress with these slow runs.