Marathon Training: Week 1!

Total kilometers run: 32.2

This week's runs:
Tuesday: 6.4km easy (6:48 min/km avg pace)
Thursday: 6.4km easy (6:52 min/km avg pace)
Saturday: 6.4km easy (6:09 min/km avg pace)
Sunday: 13km steady (6:25 min/km avg pace)

Day one of marathon training coincided with the first miserable day of winter weather that Toronto has gotten thus far. All through November and December it has been so mild! But on Tuesday is was snowing, -15C and winds of up to 70kph!! Now, I do have access to a treadmill but I REALLY did not want to cop out on my very first day of training. So I bundled on up, and hit the road. It was really tough going by the lake....very windy, blowing snow obliterating the pathway, and just plain cold. But I did it!!

I do have a sport balaclava, but I am kind of saving it for when it gets unbearably cold. I don't want to resort to it just yet! I am kind of hoping I will acclimate to the cold. Thankfully by the weekend the weather rebounded to around the freezing mark, which is not so terrible to run in. You can tell my pace picked up then. I don't think it is the cold that makes me slower (though the wind and blowing snow doesn't really help), but it is the fear of ice. On those days the path looked wet and icy and so I stepped more cautiously! Thankfully the city does perform excellent winter maintenance and the path was well plowed and salted and I never slipped at all!

So recap of week 1? It was cold and I was tired but I plowed on through. I can't believe week 1 is already a long run of 13km! And this is the EASIEST week! EEP!