Andrew Schrauben

Just 11 days into January and I've already passed the 50-mile mark by running 10 times in those 11 days. I doubled-up one day and took two days off. I was at 39 miles this time last year, so not a big difference really.

Tuesday I jogged a mile to the local fairgrounds where they have a dirt track. It was 23 degrees and snowing a bit but I still wore shorts - my legs feel better with the freedom of movement. One of my favorite things about the spring is that I can wear shorts again! At the track I ran 12 laps, alternating fast 90-second laps with slow three-minute laps. It felt really good - running fast is such a thrill. For some reason I love going around the curve in a track while running hard, perhaps because I can feel the sideways g-forces and I guess it just makes me feel fast. By the time I got home I was warm except for my hands, which got numb despite wearing gloves! When they started to thaw out they HURT like crazy! Holy cow, was that painful, as if each finger was entirely a big bruise that was being smacked over and over. Ow ow ow ow.

Today I tried to do a tempo run with Beacon. I say "tried" because I didn't do the tempo part much faster than the slow part - the slow was too fast and the fast was too slow. But hey, Beacon had fun and behaved pretty well, so it was all worth it.

Tomorrow I'm running an easy 5 miles at work, just like I did Monday and Wednesday. I'm planning to keep that up for a while and use those as my easy days, since two of the four guys who run with me don't go any faster than 10 minutes miles. One guy can do 9:00 and another can do 8:00 over that distance, so I used to run with them if they ever pulled ahead, but now we're all doing an easy pace.

I forgot to mention one cool thing that happened during a recent PT session. On Tuesday my trainer asked what I did over the weekend. I mentioned that I went for a trail run with my dog. "How far?" he asks; "12 miles" I reply. "Wow, so, uh, you can just go out and run 12 miles whenever you feel like it?" was his response. I guess I never thought of it that way, but it's pretty cool that yes, I can just go and run 12 miles whenever I want. Three years ago I remember thinking how someday I'd go on an epic six-mile run! Amazing how my perspective has changed.