First Workout

We got the word about school being closed today last night around 7:30, so it was nice knowing before hand and getting to sleep in. KC's alarm went off as scheduled though. Bob was going to meet me at 7:30am to warm up with me before the workout, but he ended up bailing this morning because of road conditions. So I milled around a little more at home than usual and probably started around 7:45 instead.

I knew that the track wasn't going to be clear, so I programmed the workout into my watch last night. Warm up 3 miles, 3 x 1200 at 5:20 pace and 2 minutes rest, 3 x 800 at the same pace with 80 seconds rest, then cool down 2 miles back. Greg said that the rest was supposed to be standing around. I ended up walking most of it. The roads were fairly cleared, but I was sticking to main roads as much as I could. We may have been able to get away with a 2-hour delay, but I'm happy for the cancellation. I wore my heart rate monitor, which was annoying as crap for the first 10 minutes because it kept falling down. I felt like I was adjusting my training bra. I finally stopped in upper Caroline to make it tighter, and then it didn't bother me much more.

Unfortunately the roads weren't perfect, so I was running all over the place just trying not to fall. I started going hard around Old Mill Park, and I just couldn't stay in the pace. My alarms were set between 5:18 & 5:22, and I was constantly being told to speed up. On the first interval, I started out pretty slow. On the others, I started out very fast and was told to slow down. I'm not too happy about it. My paces were 5:31, 5:28, 5:29, 5:38, 5:31, 5:28. On the 5:39 (the first 800), I was going down hill behind the Wachovia near Rt. 1. The watch was telling me to go faster but I couldn't because I thought I'd fall. It was awful there. I also turned around before the time was up so that I could make it across Rt. 1 during a green light. So that whole first 800 was kind of a wash.

Then I cooled down back up to the car. I look forward to another workout, perhaps one on the track or not snow covered roads. I wonder how this would have been if I'd done it on a treadmill. I could have warmed up and cooled down outside, but I couldn't have guaranteed there'd be an open treadmill.

Also of note, I listened to music today while running. I had the volume down low enough that I was still able to hear cars. I was turning around a lot anyway to check behind me since I was bouncing back from one side of the pavement to another to avoid the ice or slush. I used one of my dad's old Audible mp3 players. It already had a Yellowcard album, Lights and Sounds, from when I rode my bike on the deck of my mom's house one fall night in 2006 when she had bridge club over at the house. The music wasn't too loud, nor did it inspire me all that much, but it was nice to keep my mind off of the solitude.

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