It's 8 Miles To The Donut Shop

Despite all the odds being against us after getting 17 inches of snow in New York on Thursday night and it snowing for most of the day Friday, Drew and I actually made it to Michigan on Friday night - on time! We took our time getting to the airport figuring that there was no way our plane would leave on time and instead of having to wait around for hours and hours, we walked right onto the plane and flew away!

Saturday morning we had made plans to go for a run with my friend Ann. She's also training for a half-marathon and needed to get some miles in. Drew came along with us for the first part of our run and snapped a couple pictures of us running:


Ann asked me before we left New York if I had YakTrax. I told her that since I live in a major metropolitan area, I never really need them, since most sidewalks in New York are clear the majority of the time, even after a big snowstorm. She ended up finding an extra pair for me to wear, which ended up being really great. The road that we're running on in the picture above wasn't too bad, but it definitely varied from street to street - and sometimes from house to house. (Drew had to suffer through his run without them and managed okay, I think).

After we dropped Drew off, Ann and I set off on a tour of downtown Ann Arbor. Which turns out to be hillier than I remembered or ever really noticed before. I had told her that since there is such a monster of a hill in my half-marathon from mile 6 to mile 7, that I need the practice, and she definitely delivered a route with some serious hills.

Because of the terrain in some spots and just tiredness in others, we ended up taking a couple walking breaks. I have to tell you that running in snow is definitely a lot harder than I would have anticipated it being. I was actually really nervous about today's run because of my horrible experience on Thursday with my running shoes where I was just done with the whole thing. I ended up taking my older shoes with me to Michigan, since I figured that they might have a couple more miles left on them and it turned out that I was correct on that one (thank goodness!).

My feet, legs and knees still felt great when we were done with the run, so it was nothing like Thursday's disastrous run that made me want to quit all together. This is us, after the run, still smiling:

It was really, really nice to have someone to chat while while running instead of just being out there on a long run by myself. Too bad I couldn't convince her to do this half-marathon with me (although she's much faster than I am, so I don't think we would have run together anyway!).

After running almost 9 miles in total, Drew, Ann and I hit up my favorite donut shop in Ann Arbor (don't worry - only two of those donuts are mine!) as a treat. I also had a chocolate milk because I thought that would be a bit more of a recovery treat than two donuts.

As a side note, I didn't take anything to eat or drink on the run and actually felt okay. But it was pretty slow going the whole time, so maybe that's part of it. I was definitely ready for my donuts when we got them!

As far as wrapping up this week and the month of February, I definitely didn't make my mileage goal for the week, but as soon as I get new shoes, hopefully that will change for the next two weeks. I also had wanted to finish up my weight lifting book this month, and didn't do that either. I'm only going to say that I'm going to keep that in the back of my mind and try again next month. However, I did run 90.30 miles this month, which is definitely an all time high, so I'm pretty proud of that, even if I did miss out on some miles in this plan.

Running
Time: 1:55:53
Distance: 8.91 miles
Pace: 12:54
Calories: 1485
Maximum HR: 187
Average HR: 175