New personal distance

Yesterday for my long run I ran 4.5 miles!! Okay, I know that's not really that far compared to most runners, but it was the farthest I have EVER run. I kept my pace slower at around 11 minutes per mile. It was a beautiful day too.  The sun was out and it was about 55 degrees. It was a little windy so I dressed in my warm running gear...long compression pants, long sleeve tech shirt, fleece vest and my new fleece toboggan (with pony tail cut out). I guess I should call it a beanie like all the cool kids ;)

Anyways, after the first mile I realized I was dressed a little too warm. But once I was out on the trails there was nothing I could do about that. When I got home my son said "what is that white stuff on your face"? I had sweat so much I had the nice salty face, especially right above my lip! Oh that's great considering the trails were full of people out since it was such a nice day. I did go by one person I knew and said hello in passing. Hopefully I was running so fast he didn't notice, lol!

So after my lazy weekend last week, I did much better sticking to the training schedule. Besides my Friday rest day, the only day I missed working out was on Wednesday night. We went ice skating with the running club, GRC. I have never been ice skating before and I was not very good at it either! I didn't fall but that was because I either had my hubby's hand or I was hugging the wall. I think I made it around the rink 2 times, assisted by Michael of course. It was a good time though.

On Saturday we went to the track at my son's school to do some interval runs. I did an 8 x 400 run. Alternating one fast lap that is faster than race pace and a recovery lap. I did well to keep the fast lap around 9 minutes per mile (which is my goal one day). The recovery lap was a little bit of walking (right after the fast lap) and a slow jog. Michael ran the fast laps with me to help me keep my pace. It really helped having him there to push me. I may do the interval run again next Saturday instead of the tempo run.

Last week I mentioned the possibility of doing the Oak Island 10k on April 21st. Well it looks like Michael will be out of town that weekend so I will stick to doing the 10k in Winston on April 14th. But first comes the Beer Run. I need to find a cute St. Patrick's Day shirt to wear. One more day in January to run and I'm interested to see my total miles for the month. I plan to add a sidebar widget to keep my total monthly miles. I also plan to do an update on my 2012 goals list to see how well (or bad) I did in January. Anything that helps me stay accountable!