Six more weeks of winter it will be!

Damn you Punxsutawney Phil. (When I posted this, the wind chill was 6)

For those of you who missed the Seer of Seers, the Prognosticator of all Prognosticators' February 2 weather forecast, the stupid rodent saw his shadow and cursed us with six more weeks of winter. Of course you already knew that because it is colder than a "polar bear's testicle" (What's Next Girl thought that would be witty).

I also heard on the radio last night that of the 90 days of winter, it has snowed 58 of them in Chicago, which is 60% more than usual. Next year, Punxsutawney's famous vermin sees his shadow, someone shoot it.

The good news is, that if Phil saw his shadow on Feb 2, and then only cursed 6 more weeks of winter, that only leaves one left right?

Still, if anyone sees Phil, give him the bird for me.

Yes, it was a cold and very windy run this morning, and I am still not over it. I am currently leading one of the Chicago Area Runners Association (CARA)'s pace groups for a half marathon training. I have done these CARA groups before for both marathons and halfs, and I thought it would be fun to lead one. The official race we are training for is Nashville's Country Music Half Marathon, but I am going to participate in the Drake Relays On the Roads instead (so I get to see the family and godson in Des Moines).

Today's Cold Run: So this week was a step back week in the training. The long run was only supposed to be 5 miles, but the gatorade stop was a little further than 2.5 miles (set up for the marathon trainers), so we ran 5.7ish. It was about 20 degrees when I left the house, with a strong wind from the NNW. For whatever reason, that didn't register with me until we turned around for the out and back route at Castaways at North Ave. Apparently the tailwind we were enjoying on the way South was stronger than we knew. Made the way back feel like a tempo run. Not particularly fun.

Today's Training Log:

Running:

5.77 Miles, 49:15, 8:32 min/mile pace

Biking:

Going to bike an hour on a trainer at On the Route. (Update: they took down their cool indoor training area, so no biking for me today!)