Rainbow in the Dark

In case you didn't know (although if you read this blog, you probably have some interest in triathlon/running), sixteen miles is a pretty long way by foot. A lot further than 8 miles (yesterday's run). Like, almost twice as much.

This was one of those mornings in the fall that are tough to judge what to wear. It was about 4 degrees, with a stiff wind, when I went out the door. Normally, I'd wear a long-sleeve shirt, windbreaker, and shorts, but a thread on Slowtwitch about running tights got me thinking maybe I should pull mine on. So I did. I also wore my heavier gloves.

Both of those decisions were mistakes. It only took a few miles before I was overheated, but being hard-headed, I kept going through the entire run. The westerly wind took a lot of gas out of me over the course of the run. I followed by usual plan of picking up the intensity into a higher HR band, but my the last few miles, that HR got me only a slight improvement over the pace at the start of the run. So there's some endurance work that needs to be done. Luckily, I have 11 weeks and about 350 miles to get that work in.

Run: 8 miles @ 145 bpm, 8 miles @ 150 bpm

I will note that I saw the most amazing rainbow of my life this morning. I think this was the first time I've seen one that had the entire arc visible. It's the stuff like that that keeps me from spending all my time on the treadmill.