Somebody, please make this weather go away.  I admit it, today is the day I have hit my limit of cold weather.  I should be more specific, I have hit my limit of stupidly cold weather.  Honestly, I would be more than happy to have a series of -10 sunny winter days with little or no windchill.  I really don’t need it to be spring.  I am understanding of the fact that we are still in the season of winter.  I don’t want to be running in a heat wave.  But can’t we just have pleasant winter days?  You know those days where if you dress properly you are perfectly comfortable, with the added bonus of no summer bugs or threats of heat stroke?  I like those days.  In fact I love those days.  My fear is this is what is going to happen: we will continue to freeze our butts (and noses, and fingers and toes) off, then we will get one or two perfect days and suddenly it will be hot, humid and buggy.  Could we just have some reasonable weather for a while???

Moving away from the weather rant, I found myself questioning my running strength at the beginning of this week.  I was very proud of surviving that -39 C race on Sunday but oh so disappointed in my time.  I in no way planned to PB at the race but I certainly thought I would be a couple of minutes faster.  Of course the weather played a part, but there is only so much you can blame on weather.  It was frustrating to finish in 58 minutes given the fact I have been running fairly regularly.

The only upside was the fact that the next day I did not feel like I had run a race at all, so instead of having a rest day I went out again and made myself do some faster running for 6 km.  Sometimes anger and frustration can make you pick up your speed a little.

The following day though was my hill training day and I admit I wanted out of it.  Now my legs were tired and I was worried they would never last for 7 hill repeats, plus a long, gradual hill warm up.  I found myself hoping that my hill running partner wouldn’t be there so I wouldn’t have to work my butt off.  Bill is the one who has got me to the point of running up hills at a speed I would never have tried on my own, but yesterday the thought of pushing myself to that level was not in the least appealing.  If I was on my own I figured I could slowly do a couple of hills, go for an easy run and call it a day.  Bill was there though, so I couldn’t bail immediately.  Instead I warned him I might not make it through the whole training session.  We did a warm up, which was on a different hill, then made our way to where we do our repeats.  We started up and I felt OK.  Then my legs started feeling a little tired, which quickly changed to them feeling very heavy.  Once I was almost at top of the 475 m hill I thought there was no way I would be able to do 6 more repeats.  I announced that I was done and would just go on by myself for a short –  and more importantly – flat run.  To which Bill replied that there was a reason I was feeling that way and then told me to look at my watch.  We had run the hill at a 5:07 pace.  I don’t run on flat ground at a 5:07 pace!  We decided to slow it down to a 5:20 pace up the hill, and sure enough I was comfortable, or at least comfortable enough, at the slower pace.  That slower pace though is still much faster than I ever thought I would do on hills.  Also worthy of noting, the 7th time up was at a 5:10 pace.  I may not feel any confidence in running distance at a reasonable pace right now, but at least I know I can do hills!

The best feeling though on Tuesday was doing that 7th hill and telling myself it was the last hill repeat of this training session.  Technically I could do another week, but I have decided i want to get three speed sessions done prior to heading overseas.  I have actually never done true speed intervals so this will be new to me.  I am wondering if I will be able to do a 5 minute pace for my intervals, or at least a 5:05.  I’m kind of looking forward to a new challenge, though I am guessing a few intervals into my speed session I will not be so enthusiastic.  If you see someone on the roads next Tuesday afternoon clutching her knees and doing her best to keep lunch down and still gasp for air, it will probably be me.