Plan was to run 10 miles today.

Reality: 10.7 (give or take .1 or so).

Route: 5 miles in Proctor (usual loop with the Saturday crew) in 47 minutes, then after a quick stop to use the facilities I headed home via the roads and a snowmobile trail.

Wore my heart rate monitor, set it so it would beep if I went outside of a certain range. My goal was to keep my pace within the 65-75% range. I did pretty well. 71 minutes out of 109 were "in the zone'. Hills were the main reason for getting my heart rate up, topping off at 177 bpm (note, according to many formulas that exceeds the maximum heart rate for someone my age, but as I was not sucking wind at any time I think the formula isn't right for me. I use 203 as my max.)

Close to 4 miles of the run were on a snowmobile trail. The surface was great. Firm (not much snow lately, well-packed), with just a dusting of fluff in spots to add a bit of cushion. The last .5 miles or so was on the SHT near my house. I hit 10 miles and felt like I could do more so opted for the trail home vs running even more downhills on the pavement.

As I hit the snowmobile trail the only tracks I saw (other than snowmobiles) were from a fox. Looked like there may have been more than one fox even. I didn't see any signs of humans on the trail for quite a while. A raven passed overhead. The chickadees were very active. The benefit of trails and the slower pace is the opportunity to look around.

Oh yeah, temperature at start: 5 degrees F (-15 C).
Temperature when I arrived home: 19 F (-7 C)

Winds were quite light, though brisk when they did hit. I picked the layers right today and carried a lumbar pack so that I had someplace to put the shedded layers. The worsted weight mitts went quickly, within the first couple of miles. Depending on the direction I was headed the top layer of long-sleeved fleece got zipped down or up. I did end up shedding the base layer mitts for a while, then putting them back on (wind). By the time I had gone 7 miles or so I had peeled the long-sleeve fleece down and was running with my base-layer unzipped.

When I got home I pulled an adirondack chair out of the snow by the sauna, placed it in a sunny spot on the back porch and did my post race "stretch" (slouched in the chair, legs propped on the railing). Gotta love the sun when it comes back in the spring!!

This is the first time that I have done a long run and ended it feeling like I could have done more. Not that many weeks ago I had to do 7 miles and it was tough near the end. Funny how training does have an effect ;->

I think using the heart rate monitor to keep me at an easy pace may be the key. Average pace for the whole run was a bit over 10 minutes/mile. I will take that, especially with the hills on the last 4 miles.

Knitting update: spent some time working on the Healing shawl today, and for the last few days. Have worked a few rows on the scarf. Still no real inspiration for the merino/silk blend yarn, so less temptation to cast it on. Bird mittens are languishing. I probably should get a book on CD or something to fire me up about finishing those.

While the sun is still shining I think I will head outside to get Porter some exercise. Current temperature: 29 degrees F (-1 C)

Enjoy the sun while it lasts! Tomorrow sounds like a wet, gray day.