Icy

The last time I ran a marathon (just under a week ago), I ran the entire race only 2 to 8 feet away from ice. The Icebreaker Marathon is run around the 400 meter Olympic Ice Oval that the long track speed skaters train on. All that separates the runners from the ice is a foam barrier there to protect the speed skaters when the biff it and slide into the wall. But that was ice I didn't run on.

This morning there was ice that I DID run on. I woke up and drove to East Troy where Mike lives to go on a 10 mile run with him. We didn't get the few inches of snow that they predicted, instead we got freezing rain. The main roads were all salted and fine but when I got into Mike's neighborhood, it was slippery and I almost slid right through a stop sign. Once out of the car, it was slightly difficult to get up to Mike's door. Once ready to go, we actually were not sure if we were going to continue. No need to slip and fall just to get a run in.

We got out of the neighborhood onto more used roads and the side area was still icy but the road was OK so we ended up running in the road, that is until cars came and we moved over to avoid getting killed. By a mile, we had already thought of cutting the run to only 4 miles but when that turn off came, Mike just went straight. Talk about confusing, I guess we were going longer.

We were not running fast as we didn't feel fast and the roads sort of prevented us from doing so. We go to where we needed to turn to run only 10 miles and again, Mike went straight. Guess we are doing more! We ended up only doing a "looper" as we call it and did 11.7 miles.

By mile 4, I had to stop for a bit which ended up helping a lot. First 4 miles were at 9:08 pace and the final 7.7 miles were at 8:35 pace and that was with the ice every once in awhile. I think we put in the effort of closer to the low 8's but that is all I could muster with feet slipping every once in awhile.

In the end, I think it went well, at least the last 7 miles. My legs felt a little tired from Icebreaker but for the most part, good. I still have nothing on the agenda but don't really think there will be for awhile. Just training and having fun. But.........Ice is NOT fun.