8K; rest day; 3K fartlek

I did 8K on Christmas Eve (after resting on the 23rd). Unfortunately, my Garmin totally ate the workout. It's been doing that...I deleted the activities manually from the folder on the watch and now it won't keep things like it used to. Grrrrrr. I really ought to troubleshoot that sometime. Anyway, my legs were a bit tired, even after a day off. I did 48:50 for 6:08/km. Not sure of my average HR but I think it was close to 150. I didn't feel that great and I was working kind of hard. It was raining moderately and about 37F (3C) so it was pretty cold too. I met my friends on the trail, which was fun but I only saw them for a bit because I had to go my speed, and they went theirs. I saw them again on the way back and we got a group photo.

And here's what it did later in the day...so we had a white Christmas! :)

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Christmas Day was a rest day :). I enjoyed hanging out with my family (mom, dad, husband, kids, cousin, and a friend) and cooking and resting a bit. We introduced the kids to Monopoly, which Calvin loved. He's quite into games now but VERY competitive (hmmm wonder where he gets that from?) and gets pretty upset when he loses. He will learn eventually I think.

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Today I was to do a 3K fartlek. I reveled in sleeping in until 7 am and then hanging out doing not much for a couple hours before doing my workout. It's nice to have the week off.

It was snowing lightly and the streets were slushy, but they looked passable for a 3K fartlek. The track was out of the question (under 6 inches (15cm) of snow), so it was either the indoor track (ho-hum) or the streets (more fun). I opted for the streets, and unfortunately they were a bit slicker than they looked from my house. We live on a bit of a hill, and so they are better at plowing our street than some of the flatter streets that I prefer for the fartlek workouts if the track is impassable. Anyway, the outcome was that the street was probably 90% clear for a single car width, with 10% of the route having spots that were slippery. I estimate that probably took 5-15 seconds (conservatively) off of my 3km time. Given that, I was pretty fast.

I warmed up for 1 mile (1.6km) mostly on a slight downhill, in a very fast 9:05. I felt pretty darn good! I was excited to get going. I took the first 500m (slight downhill) a bit fast, in 2:33, and then the second 500m was flatter/slightly uphill? and slower at 2:48. Then I pushed a bit on the medium effort 500m, maybe because I was annoyed with the 2:48? I did a 2:53 and thought "wow, that was fast" before turning around (I did 1.5km out and 1.5km back) and doing another really nice fast 500m in 2:42, a fast medium effort in 2:51 (OK, it was pretty hard, but I did ease up!) and finally a very hard 500m on a slight uphill in 2:39! Total time was 16:28, which is 10 seconds slower than my PR for this workout. Still...with the slushy/slippery conditions I'm pleased.

As for my right knee, I am pretty sure it was good on the non-slippery parts. All bets are off on the slippery spots! Impossible to think about that many things while trying not to fall over :).

I pushed hard, as my average heart rate was 161 for the very short workout, and my max was 175! I feel pretty good now, a few hours later, though I am a bit stiff. I ameliorated that a bit by going figure skating for an hour with my kids and my friend Sarah and her kids.

Garmin data here.