January 13th through January 19th

Sunday, January 13th
17 mile long run in Big River Management Area in West Greenwich with Galoob, Gazelle, Muddy, Rhody Seth, & Sandals.  All in all, the run last for two hours and eighteen minutes and was quite grueling (at least for me!).  I was highly impressed with the wide variety of trails and size of the area.  During various parts of the run, we cruised.  Trail fatigue set in for me at around 90 minutes but the group helped me get through.  My synopsis of Big River is that it is a very unique, cool spot.  I hope to run in there again sometime soon.  On the ride home I cuddled with the Angel of Suffering.  Good stuff.

Monday, January 14th
4 mile slog with Lulu in the dark on local roads.  Tight and sore.

Tuesday, January 15th
P90x Yoga: 60 minutes

Wednesday, January 16th
a.m. 20 minutes of core work (pushups, abs, stretching)
p.m. 7
2.5 mile warmup at a pretty good clip.  I arrived to Hell Field as darkness set in.  My goal for the day was to bang out as many tempo 400s as I could before it became completely black.  Despite some slips on snowy grass, I completed 6X400m before calling it a day.  This workout was the first time I wore my space watch and I was interested to find out the real distance of this field...it turned out to be exactly a 1/4 mile...sweetness.  All repeats were completed between 76 and 78 seconds.  2+ mile warmdown.  Very sore upper right quad.

Thursday, January 17th
5 mile recovery run with Lulu.  Tight, slow, and demoralizing.

Friday, January 18th
445 Club with the Gazelle..A classic 7 miler on local roads from my house.
Based off of weather reports, I was expecting an absolutely bitter morning.  I was pleasantly surprised when I went outside to the balmy temperature of around 28 degrees.  As Jeff and I got going, I made sure to whine to him about my balky hip and the tightness I've been dealing with.  Our attention quickly diverged to the black ice that filled the roads around us.  For the remainder of the run we were forced to pay attention to road conditions as we cruised around.  Despite some slipping, neither of us took any diggers during the run.  Quite possibly the neatest part of the run came when we approached Weekapaug Beach and noticed what looked to be some fishing boats not too far off the coast.  "Who fishes at 5:15 in the morning in the middle of January anyway?" I thought to myself.  I wonder if those fisherman noticed the headlight and flashing light on the coast.    "Crazy runners.  Who would want to go for a run this early on a mid-winter morning anyway?"

A very fun run.  The hip didn't even bother me too much today.

Saturday, January 19th
4 miles with Kelsey and Lu.
I made a stop at HELL Field for a mini workout that went like this:
4X400 with 30 seconds rest after each rep.
71, 72, 73, 71

I kept switching directions to work the different angles of the wind gusts.  I was happy to close out with the 71 since the rests did not give me much time to recover.

Weekly Totals:
Mileage: 44
Lulu's Miles: 12
P90x: yoga (60 minutes)
Core Work: 20 minutes

YTD: 102
Lulu: 26

Synopsis:
Pros: Big River Long Run, mini-workouts, 445 Club Run, and most miles ran in awhile.
Cons: On-going hip tightness, poor trail fitness, and time it took to recovery from long run