Frigid

9. 17 mph wind.

In Metric, -13. 27kph wind.

Loose snow the length of the trail, approximately 1/4" thick.

Ice. Especially on hills.

Ice chunks on the Hudson.

Those are the details of the run for seven Flyers yesterday in Upper Nyack, New York. I, for one, on the subway ride to meet the group, kept raiding my dry clothes bag for extra warmth (I think I need that T-shirt now!).

Apparently, Ward called Christoph, who was our guide to this trail, the day before to say, "Hey, Christoph, it's going to be really cold. Let me know if you think we should cancel. . ." Christoph's response on the ride out of the City? "See, what he didn't realize is . . . I'm German." (I'm not really sure what that means, exactly -- "I'm German and we're rigid," "I'm German and in the Bavarian forests this weather is warm" -- but it was still pretty funny.)

I'm calling the run 13.5 and am going to forget the time due to the conditions. I'm a little unnerved to report that Christoph and Skylight went out for more! They ended up running 20 in this weather (I hung out in the car during their extra mileage, with the heater, eating my banana and reading some Dickens. ) For me, 13.5 doubles my prior longest run of 2007, and brings me to 32 miles for my first consistent week of the year. That 32 also more than doubles my total mileage for '07, but it seemed like a good "getting back into it" amount.

Afterwards, we hit up a really cute cafe for brunch. Christoph, Skylight and I had about 7 plates between the three of us, which was somewhat ridiculous. However, it was really tasty and if you're ever in Nyack, New York, it's was called Strawberry Place.

(And, since its that time of year, the Alma Mater staged a 14-point, second-half comeback to beat Arkansas on the road Saturday. Go Cats!)

Is it a trend?

I've been very sporadic in blogging in '07, which reflects my running (weekly-to-date: 0,5,16, 10*). However, this week . . . oh, glory, oh accomplishment . . . I'm going to break 30 miles. This strikes me as sufficient consistency to be worth blogging about (also, it's notable in that it'll also lead to a doubling of my miles for the year!)

So, how has this amazing accomplishment occurred? Well, for one, I've (re)discovered that when I'm only running 4 miles a pop, I don't have to get up at 5 am. Amazing! You don't have to allocate 2 hours to run only 28 minutes. Second, I've been routinely leaving the office by 8 to 9 pm. That may still seem late, but at only around 12 hours, it's completely within my tolerance range for outside activity. Third, after about 2 weeks, I really started to feel run-down, but in a completely different way than the run-down I feel while running at my most fatigued. Basically, I like the way I feel when I'm active and don't like the way I feel when I'm not -- even if I'm running a lot and feel exhausted. A few weeks off reinforced just how much I like busting out a 5 mile run.

One thing odd about my month off, is how much faster my runs have been on this return than they were during marathon training. I would have thought that after 4 weeks of almost nothing, I'd be running slower (or at least no faster) than I was at the end of last year. That's not even close. Here's this week so far:

• Tuesday -- 4.15 miles in 29:08 (7:01/mile on the Pulaski O&B).
  
• Wednesday -- 4.15 miles in 30:25 (7:20/mile over loose snow in McCarren Park).
  
• Friday -- 6.00 miles in 45:06 (7:31/mile in a gym that felt like Kenya. Seriously, it felt like running in July).
• Today -- 5.00 miles in 36:28 (7:18/mile on the Billy Bridge O&B, but a noticable headwind on the out (18:43) that was a tailwind on the back (17:45)).

I'm somewhat confused by this. Although I understand tapering, and I understand faster times on lower mileage, I really have done almost nothing in January and thought that it would be assured that when I got back to normal mileage I wouldn't be running at sub-7:20 (and, for the record, these runs are being run at the same effort as my 7:40-7:50s at year-end '06). Is this just from integration of fitness during my time off? Is this just from rested muscles? Should I expect these times to climb over the next couple weeks? Last year was my first really "serious" training period, so this was also my first lay-off. What should I be expecting?

*I'd planned more for the fourth week, but the Flyers annual dinner (including a big open bar) derailed those ambitions. But it was totally worth it. Heh heh.