Late-December lethargy

After dealing with the time change coming back from Seattle, I was pretty useless on Monday and took the day off, sleeping a lot. Tuesday I started to feel a sore throat coming on, but fought through it to run with Karl, heading east on the W&OD to the beltway and back. Wednesday morning, I woke up at 5 am unable to imagine sitting on the metro to go to work, so I took the day off and slept until 10, when some dudes started working on the porches above my bedroom window and ruined my opportunities to sleep. I spent the rest of the day watching Breaking Bad and flirting with the thought of running,despite my illness, which I passed on, ultimately. I did wake up pretty energetic the next morning, and did eight miles on a Westmoreland loop. I toyed with running after my office Christmas party Friday, but that ended up going longer than I had planned. Saturday morning,I ran down to Annandale and did a 10.5-mile loop thought Holmes Run Stream  Park and up Sleepy Hollow.It was ok, but not too exciting. Sunday I did a pretty quick reverse Westmoreland at 6:15 pace. The cold was still a problem, lots of congestion and coughing, but I was sleeping well. Monday evening, Karl and I ran out on the W&OD west to Sunrise Valley for 12.6 miles. It was the longest I had run since my trip to Difficult Run before nationals. I coughed like crazy on the way out but was better on the return.

I ran after work Tuesday, just around Hains Point, and the radio on my mp3 player died. Actually, the whole gadget died, which was a bummer. As much as I like the sansa clip player, it's not that durable. I got up on Wednesday to run before work, but I felt trashed before I hit a mile, so I just did an Idylwood for four miles.I took Thursday off of work and did an hour on the Pimmit Run Trail, definitely feeling out of it when I turned around before Old Dominion. Friday morning I did a Westmoreland ++ and found the new mile splits to be a little better.

Saturday I resumed the tradition of the annual WPIAL alumni run. For the first time in years, Lebo guys outnumbered Baldwin, with Costello, Rad, Sean and me compared to Sheehan, Quinn and Mazzocco. We also had Marco, Slosky, Hack, Anne, Taryn and her brother Nick,  Scott and Megan, Wu, Brandon G. I know there were others, but I can't remember right now. When we finished up, Mazzocco surprised me with the mp3 player I had left at his place when I was in Boston in April. It was a great surprise, and might yet save my winter running.

Sunday morning I did a 10 mile loop through the West End, Elliot, Sheraden, Chartiers City, and Windgap. Pretty hilly, I averaged 6:40s.


Monday I met up with Slosky, Marco, Ann, Maura and Slosky's friend Lauren and ran in Schenley Park. Toward the end, Brandon G showed up, the girls and Sloksy stopped and we sped up for a 3k loop.

Tuesday's 35-degree rain convinced me to take a reluctant day off to try and finish off my cold.