Today's Long Run

I lucked out.  I was originally worried that it would be really icy for my long run this morning, but the roads and asphalt sidewalks were ice free.  There were a few slick spots on some of the concrete sidewalks that I had to run on, but these spots were few and far between.  It helped that the temperature was just above freezing - 34 degrees is still cold to run in for over two and half hours, but it could be a lot worse!

My run this morning measured 13.5 miles.  After I logged it into my training log, I realized that this was my longest run EVER!  I've run 3 half-marathons - which are 13.1 miles - so today's run was 0.4 mile longer than my previous long runs.  Of course, since run was at an easier pace than a race, my time was a lot longer...but I felt a lot better at the end!

There were a few points where I had some minor aches, but they went away a few minutes later.  Within the first mile, I had a little pain near my Achilles tendon - I believe that I may have stretched it a bit to much before heading out this morning - but I kept running through it and within two minutes the pain went away and never came back.  At the end of my run my legs felt really sore, but I'm sure that's just a product of moving them and the pounding for over two and half hours.

Although the streets and sidewalks were not icy, there was a dusting of snow on the grass and the tree branches were still covered with ice which made the scenery stunning this morning.  I chose to listen to Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker at the beginning of my run which went beautifully with the winter scene I was running through.  I figured out that as The Nutcracker was ending, that the sun would just be rising and I would be running through a few streets that meandered through the forest so I chose Beethoven's 6th Symphony (Pastoral Symphony) next.  Again, the music helped me appreciate the scenery I was running through and since I wasn't focusing on lyrics I found my mind wandering quite a bit.