Mississauga Marathon Training, Week 18, Day 2: 124 Days to Go!
9 Mile / 14.5 Km General Aerobic Run
For this training block, I've cut down to a six-day-a-week schedule, with Mondays either fully rest days or cross-training days. So, today was the first official day of planned running (after about a month and a half of messed up running attempting to deal with my left ankle issues). The physiotherapy appears to be helping considerably already.
After a day off (aside from physio exercises and some ice-skating), I jumped out the door for an icy "General Aerobic" run. Pfitzinger and Douglas's explanation of what these are is very clear:
General aerobic runs include your standard, moderate-effort runs of up to 10 miles (16 km). They are slower than lactate-threshold runs, shorter than medium-long runs, and faster than recovery runs.1
In other words, just go out and run. Great! Done.
Oh, but wait, it was a bit cold and damp, and very icy! In these conditions the safest place is, counterintuitively, on the road, facing traffic. This is usually pretty safe where there are wide shoulders and bike lanes to act as a buffer. But there always seems to be at least one or two drivers who feel personally affronted by the existence of runners on the road, no matter how conscientious and careful we are. I stayed as close to the gutter as possible but still managed to be honked at twice. And when I did finally decide to head onto the sidewalk to cross a very busy intersection? Of course I immediately slipped on the ice and landed almost directly on my face. Luckily I managed to land well enough to avoid hurting myself, though I was slightly concerned about my phone. Nevertheless we both survived and I made it back in one piece.
In future posts, I'll try to add some sort of data-analysis/visualization or other interesting features. But I'm still deciding exactly how (and how often) this documentary process should happen.
Tomorrow, easy recovery miles.