A Peaceful 9-mile Tempo

After waking up Thursday morning and being incredibly sore from my workout the previous day, I knew that my scheduled tempo run just was not going to go well.  I decided in the morning that  i would switch my Friday and Thursday runs, and just complete my tempo after school got out on Friday afternoon.  I would have enough time to complete it outside in daylight, something that is very important to me.

Since it snowed on Thursday night, I knew running the path that I normally run would not be best because of the snow.  I decided to head to a garden/arboretum to get my miles in for the day.  I have run there before, and knew that it incredibly hilly.  Rarely do you get to run on flat pavement.  But, I thought it would be a good challenge.

I started running, with the goal of having all miles be sub-8:00 pace.  I thought this was achievable, even in the windy conditions.  The first mile of my run as directly up hill, and a little bit of doubt crept in my mind if this was going to be a quality tempo run.  But, just as I thought, my favorite song came on my iPod which provided some great distraction. 

Before I knew it, I completed the bigger loop (a little over 4 miles) and was on to conquer the loop for a second time.  The run was very picturesque, with all of the trees covered in snow.  It was so peaceful and I was the only runner that I saw.  There were a few cars, but those were few and far between.

In the end, I completed 9 miles at a 7:48 average.  Of course, some miles were faster than others, but all were under 8:00 pace.  I got done, and then realized that my knee was in such pain.  I hobbled to the gym to do some stretching and biking to try to make it feel better, although that didn't work out too well.  Today it feels a little better, but still sore.  I thought I was over my knee problems earlier in the week, but they have decided to return and are very unwelcome.

I am happy I switched my days and did my tempo on Friday.  It was so peaceful and beautiful running through the snow-covered trees.  But hopefully that is the last snow of winter.