Long, short and medium

After a couple days off I resumed my training in South Dakota where we were visiting. On Friday the weather was cool so I decided I'd do my Saturday long run a day early, and then follow up on Saturday with a short easy run. Saturday was expected to be near freezing.

Friday's run was 15 miles, and I took my usual SD route, which is north to the edge of town and then east on a county road. I did that loop twice, each time taking a side trip into Lake Henry. The roads don't go all the way around the lake, but it's still a nice diversion and eats up some mileage.

Toward the end of the run, with maybe 3 miles left, I twisted my left ankle on an uneven part of the pavement - where the shoulder and the roadbed don't quite match up. I didn't go down, but cranked the ankle pretty good. It was sore for about a mile, but then the pain went away and I never felt it again during the run or after. Once again I was thankful for the ankle-strengthening stretches I do twice a week. They seem to help in these situations.

I finished with 15.3 miles, and counted it as a very good run.

On Saturday the temp was 34 when I got out for a 5 mile run. I stayed mostly in the Scotland city limits on this one because the rising sun was absolutely blinding, and the wind was very cold. I didn't have all the right gear for such conditions, so I stayed in more protected areas.

Back home on Sunday I wanted to do my 13-mile interval workout a day early because such mileage on weekdays is hard for me to fit in. But, because of various commitments time was at a premium this day, too. I ended up splitting the workout into two sessions - a morning tempo run of 5.6 miles, and an evening interval run (six 800s) of 8 miles. Both runs were very good, but the evening run, which I didn't even start until 8 p.m., was especially successful. My 800s were generally done at sub-8 min. pace without a lot of extra effort.