Fri 2/14 - PM 80 minutes easy

Acton St. to Conant Road, on to High Street, Stow Road-Tuttle-Red Acre-White Pond-Track Road and back. Originally planning to do a repeat of the run from the other day along Rockland Ave and into Levittown, but took one look at the conditions of Rockland and kept going straight instead. This meant braving High Street of course to get to S. Acton center, had to get up on the sort-of cleared sidewalk for a bit but made it in one piece. Most salient feature of the run in general was the atrocious state of the roads, a day of melting gave way to an evening of refreezing with slippery spots and sheer ice in abundant supply. The absolute worst thing for the already tweaked and overworked right leg, calf and high hamstring both feeling like crap most of the way. And then I got to Track road, not wanting to run down 117 via Hastings. Ealier in the winter snowmobiles had packed the snow down but nothing after yesterday's storm so it was fresh tracks through deep snow punching through an icy crust with every step. Hell on earth, really. Got home in time to clear some ice off the driveway though. Shouldn't be surprising how badly the footing has deteriorated after yesterday's big snowfall but disheartening nonetheless. Thought of spring and summertime runs on the trails to make it better in fact.

Thu 2/13 - off

Snowed until mid to late afternoon at which point it changed over to freezing rain. The dreaded wintry mix. Got to leave work early, and make my way home during the worst of the snowfall which was no fun. Round 1 of shoveling immediately thereafter, snowing so hard there was already an inch or two of powder on the first section of driveway by the time I'd finished the last. Then laundry, a very long nap, and awaking to wind-driven rain and the realization that after shoveling for the second time there would be no other exercise for the day. Not even a brief treadmill run, such was my lack of motivation. Stunning levels of apathy in fact. Third brief round of shoveling later on, just the end of the driveway though, courtesy of the enormous plow rumbling down 27. The nap was nice the rest of the day not so much.

Wed 2/12 - PM 50 minutes easy

Tiger Drive to Longfellow loop. Pressed for time which cut the length of the run short a bit. Not much difference in how legs felt today vs. yesterday, i.e. still clunky and sore. Easy jogging for the foreseeable future. Another cold day, in fact I don't think it's been on the warm side of freezing more than one day in the past week.

Tue 2/11 - PM 65 minutes easy

Rockland Ave. to Levittown. Gingerly took to the streets after the first massage in almost a year, devoted entirely to calves. Worked out some of the kinks, serious soreness on the lateral aspect of each side. Right one still balky, it would take more than one treatment to make a dent on that. The run itself was a slog, not moving or feeling particularly well. Continued cold and wind added to the fun.

Mon 2/10 - PM 60+ minutes skiing

Area 51. Looking to do something mellow and low impact and this certainly fit the bill. Alas, the kick phase does no favors to the right calf, making it even tighter if that's possible. Also temps dropped after sunset from tolerable to frigid, and since handwarmers aren't really compatible with ski poles, frozen fingers left me feeling somewhat miserable for much of the time.

Sun 2/9 - AM 55 minutes incl. 5k road race

West Acton. Yes I am stupid enough to follow up yesterday's dud with a totally unnecessary 5k jaunt. While the course had some nostalgia value there was absolutely no reason to be flogging myself on a day when a nice mellow ski jaunt or at most easy putter jog would have been perfectly sufficient. My motivation in fact was to cruise/tempo, win my age group and get a copy of Bill Rodgers' book for my trouble. In fact his book wasn't the one being offered as a prize and I didn't even get the book even though I was the first old fart finisher. Such is life but it merely emphasized the ill-advised nature of the whole day. Right leg was quite stiff and sore from the get-go, didn't improve much over a somewhat lengthy warmup and felt like absolute ass the first few minutes of the race. To the extent that I thought we were running 5:40 pace or so and found out it was actually north of 6 minutes. This left me embarrassed enough to make a move (relatively speaking) and covered the second hillier mile in a slightly faster time. From there ran it in just quick enough to hold off the next guy behind me not that it mattered one jot. Right leg stiffened up soon after finishing, cooldown was a crawl. I had thought about skiing later in the afternoon but motivation was at zero. All the caffeine I ingested yesterday that kept me up until the wee hours didn't help things either. In general, motivation and energy at low ebb and this fool's errand did nothing to improve that.

Sat 2/8 - PM 50 minutes incl. track mile

The roundly unsatisfying and underwhelming indoor campaign ends as it began with a drag-ass final lap capping off a positive split turd. Slowest finish to any track race in recent memory in fact, 40 seconds or so. In hindsight, I should have taken the hint after not getting into the old fart olympics and given this meet a pass entirely but I remained utterly deluded convinced that I could make a better accounting of myself than the 4:48-50 rut I've been in. Instead, after a disjointed distracted warmup and yet another race rolling through the half in 2:22, it became abundantly clear on the fifth lap that I was banging my head on the same wall once more. After hitting 3/4 in 3:35 I made an ill-advised move on the backstretch of the penultimate lap. A perfect example of spitting into the wind as all it did for me was leave me out of gas at the bell thus the trudge home. The calf was is and remains more tweaked than I was prepared to admit going in, and it felt terrible afterward on the superslow cooldown. After straining it somehow on New Year's Day it's been frayed ever since. Still feeling like something's lacking mojo-wise as well, as it's been for months now. Probably in need of an extended break but the most I'll do is take a break from workouts and track races.