Ellie and I started the building process toward our first major road race of the season, which means one thing: a weekend long run. I am happy to report it wasn't too bad! The weather was near perfect for a February run, which is quite remarkable considering less than twelve hours later, we had fierce winds gusting up to seventy miles per hour hit the area.

39 degrees and partly sunny in February. How could we not go for a run?

We haven't been running consistently, though we have done quite a lot of workouts with cardio classes, Lagree, indoor cycling, hockey, and elliptical. From a cardio standpoint, I think Ellie and I were both doing fairly well, which is a huge confidence booster. What we have been doing has been building fitness, and that is great.

I think a couple of things stood out on the run. The first is that the rails-to-trails path near our house is actually quite nice to run on. We were able to do a mile stretch with virtually no traffic stops or interruptions. Second, we REALLY need to work on our pacing. What was supposed to be a nice and easy pace turned into a race-pace effort for miles two and three, which isn't exactly the point of a long run workout. Overall, we must have been feeling good because we were both pretty happy with our effort afterward. Hopefully we can pace a little better on Saturday.

It was nice to get out and get after it. Aside from some lower-body soreness as a result of not running in ages, I think we handled it pretty well. Now all we need to do is start building in the mid-week runs to really build running resilience and speed!