Opening Day is upon us!

Wow, time is flying by.  I can't believe we are now less than 60 days until Boston.  When I qualified for this race in October of 2013, eternity was the only word to describe how long it felt it would be.  Now, it's creeping up on me.  Let's hope they clear a bit more of the snow there prior to April 20.

I'm a little late writing this week, but have a few minutes and thought I'd get these thoughts out before embarking on another busy weekend.

The week started off with a very hard, mile repeats workout.  I have a love/hate relationship with these workouts as I know they are painful, but I get better each time I run one.  I'm getting better about pacing myself in these workouts with the use of specific paces assigned to them.  The self-prescribed pace for this was between 6:16 and 6:27.  5 miles repeats, the first one 3 seconds too fast, the last one 4 seconds too slow.  Yep, just goes to show you that going out too fast impacts even the shortest workouts.  I can live with this, but beat myself up a bit about not hitting that last mile's pace.

Tuesday was a nice easy run.  It was a gorgeous 65 degree day in Naples and this turned out to be one of the more consistent runs I've ever done.  7.1 miles.

Wednesday turned out to be another nice easy run.  I was hurting a bit from the fast work on Monday and decided that I just needed to settle in for the miles.  6.3 miles.

Thursday - Travel/Off.

Friday - Opening Day of the college baseball season.  I've been looking forward to this for a long while now and, of course, the weather takes a turn for the cold.  A week earlier it was 60 degrees and gorgeous.  Now that the season is ready to open, we are going to deal with extreme cold temps.  First thing Friday morning I learn that our weekend series (Fri. thru Sun.) has been altered to avoid playing on Sunday.  This means two games on Saturday.  An appointment with my 'Witch Doctor' to get worked over for the case of Plantar Fasciitis left me with fatigued legs.  The workout was to be 8 miles with 7 at marathon pace.  I got 6.5 miles with 6 of them very near (10 seconds) marathon pace.  I just could not get down to that pace on wobbly legs.  A bit disappointed in myself, but satisfied that I made the best of this.

Saturday - Friday night's baseball game took a lot longer than it should have.  Being on tired legs already and adding a 4 hour baseball game didn't make things any better.  In order to get in my run, I would need to start at about 6 a.m.  That didn't happen and physically felt exhausted.  I started my run by 7 a.m. and two miles in realized that it just wasn't going to happen.  I did 6 miles at a very slow pace and then made my way to the ballpark for 18 innings (actually 19).

Sunday - Luckily, I got to bed at a reasonable time Saturday evening and was able to sleep in a bit.  This also allowed the temps to warm a good bit prior to running.  Even more lucky, this was a step back week in mileage so I only needed 12-13 miles for a long run.  The temp never really warmed, so I started at around 1:00 when there was at the very least some sunshine.  12 miles at 8:00 pace.  I'll take it.  Home to pack and a flight out of town to beat the Snopocalypse, Snotastrophe, Snomaggedon that's heading Nashville's way.

This was another good week of training.  As I look back on it now, it is probably exactly what I needed given the conditions, my health and schedule.  I'm going to have to learn over the next 8-9 weeks how to be more flexible with my weekend running, but still get in my miles.  While I was more than a bit disappointed about Saturday morning's effort, it probably turned out best considering the work that I had to do that day.  Being rigid and dedicated to my training makes change a challenge for me.  While I want to remain extremely focused on each workout, I must be flexible enough to move them around when necessary.