Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve was a rest day, at least as far as my running was concerned. Sleep did suffer, since we actually stayed up past midnight. Today I am joining my wife’s triathlon club Multisport Madness. My schedule calls for a 6 mile run -with 2 miles in the middle at a temp pace of 7:15. Our route will be over some of the hillier terrain in this area of Northern Illinois. It took until about the 2.5 mile mark when we past the biggest hills before we could hit the tempo pace, and at that point we were headed into a 20 mph wind. The guys I was running with, Gil and Alan are not particularly training for a marathon right now, but they have run Ironman and half-Iron man Triathlons over the last few years, and they have been regulars at 6-8 mile runs at the Swallow Cliff woods in the Cook County Forest Preserve in Cook County (where there really are some hills). So they are capable of this pace, but today might not be the best timing. Of course, gung-ho Gil had to finish our run with a Fartlek, so we end up sprinting for about a quarter mile, and then we are at the parking lot.
We stretch a little bit, but then decide to jog out to meet the rest of the group, which includes my wife Laura. After the run, we are going into one of the restaurants here, and have a New Years Day Brunch.