What a Week

For those of you in Minnesota and the rest of the upper midwest, you know what an interesting week for living it has been here. Having the coldest temps in 5 years (-20s with wind chills into the -40s!) made it a tough week just to step outside, let alone run outside. The one positive that came out of it for me was that school was closed yesterday and we had a 2 hour late start today! With every intention of heading to Lifetime yesterday on my day off to get a good indoor workout in, my car managed to not work and I was stranded at my apartment all day!

With the warmth slowly coming back I got in a good run after school today. Fortunately I had a great workout on Tuesday in the snow that the week hasn't been a total waste. I ran at AT in 2 feet of snow for 30 minutes on Tuesday afternoon. My AT is currently at 185, the highest it has ever been for me. I was tested about two weeks ago for it to start my new training, just so I knew where to base my training off of.

Tomorrow I will be heading back to River Falls for our annual Alumni track meet. I don't know if I'll run any races yet. The longest race they have is 2000 meters, which isn't even a warm-up for me but getting in something quicker would be good for me to do. If nothing else, I'll get in a good run around River Falls with a change of scenery. With nearly 4 months until my next marathon, I'm not worrying too much about racing at this point and if the weather is forcing me to take a day off or at least run inside, now is the time to do it. I hate missing a day, even this early in my training program but I know that it's better I miss a day than to be frostbitten and miss a week or two.

So goes the life of a runner in a Minnesota winter. Happy running all through the rest of January and stay warm!!

- Brandon