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4 Miles 24:44

State Farm, Boone NC

Happy New Year!  I'm getting an online training blog and a new year started right by struggling through a modest 4mile run in the 8pm blackness of night with punishing winds and bitter coldness.  God bless Boone NC and the wide open fields of State Farm.  I am also quite hungover and can probably count the hours of sleep from the previous 2 nights one hand.  Well maybe it takes two hands but it's still not enough.  It's enough to resolve for the new year to drink no more than 26 times. 

10 miles 60:02

Bass Lake, Boone NC

Ran my typical Boone run.  10 miles at Bass Lake doing the Manor, Blackbottom, Maze, and an extra mile around the lake.  Even though I do this run for 90% of my 10 milers in Boone it never gets old.  Here's a loop description:  The first 2.5 miles are a gradual uphill to the manor house (which is the retirement home in the Stephen King movie "The Green Mile").  Those miles tend to get hammered out for some reason.  Then you follow it up with about 3 miles of gradual downhill which allows one to get their "legs" back under them.  Just in time for a steep uphill coming out of blackbottom road and up onto the maze.  Once on the Maze it's another gradual mile of uphill then a gradual mile down to Bass Lake.  The loop around the lake is 1500m.  Just back to the parking lot is 9 miles (some of my other splits don't add up but it's real) so a full mile around the lake is required for the 10 mile run.  Which is nice because you can get a final pace of your run.  It's easy to run this everyday though because the entire run is on a fine packed gravel which resembles a cinder track that runs through constant Appalachia forestry.  It's also the friendliest place on earth to run.  Everyone you see always greets you with a "howdy" or sometimes a "my horse isn't even that fast."  Solid ego boost.

Bass Lake

Workout Day.  The big plan was to tempo the normal 10 mile loop at Bass Lake but I got way too ambitious early in the run and opted to make it a 4X8min fartlek run with 2 min recovery.  Even with the 2 min recovery jog I hit the manor house in 14:00 which told me I did indeed start my tempo too hard as my fastest ever to the manor is 12:40 and that was an all out attack.  On normal runs I range from 16-17:30 at the house.  The 4X8min ws good though as it got in a longer interval workout with minimal recovery.  I was pretty spent at the end. 

13 miles 78:50

Bass Lake

Another favorite run from Bass Lake is "The Firetower."  If life were a movie then every time someone said "The Firetower" a bolt of lightning would strike in the background or at least scary theme music would be cued.  Firetower also starts at Bass Lake and goes to the manor house but from there it continues to go up hill for another 3 miles getting steeper and steeper as the air gets thinner and thinner.  It's about 5.7 miles of constant uphill from the lake to the top step of the tower but the view makes it more than a rewarding journey.  I get to the top today in 34 min and climb up the tower steps to the top passing a friendly cowboy couple halfway up who tell me that I "just burned more calories than their horses."  The way down is a huge negative split of course and I add on the maze to get my 13 miles in.

10 miles 59:13

Bass Lake

Normal 10 mile loop.  I went out and had a few drinks the night before making it time 1 out of 26 (1/26).  I almost didn't want to count it because I had so little but I'm being strict on myself. 

10 miles 61:56

State Farm

I dogged a 10 miler at state farm.  At state farm it's completely flat which was just what i needed.  Why?  Well I went out drinking for time 2/26 last night.  Definately earned the right to count this one too.  When I arrived home at my parents house the mom was already awake and doing laundry.  That was a short and incoherent conversation.  I'm ready to go awhile without adding any to the 26.