Cold, cold, cold

I haven't run outside in forever.  The weather sucks.  It's rarely above freezing these days, even when it's not snowing.  I've been to the Y a few times to run on the treadmill but logistically that's just much more difficult than running around campus before heading home for the day.  This just stinks.  I'm sick of winter already and it's not even February yet.  I have to start my training program for the Broad Street Run on Monday so I guess I'm going to have to figure something out since the forecast doesn't show any big changes on the horizon.

A side note... the other day a friend asked me how fast I thought I could run a mile.  Just a single mile.  I thought about it for a minute and decided 7:30 was probably doable.  Later, however, I started wondering if I had been a little too cocky so when I was on the treadmill the other night I decided to goof around a bit.  I ran a mile at 9:00 (my usual starting pace).  Then I bumped the speed up to 8:30 and ran another mile.  I ran the third mile at 8:00 and I was starting to feel the strain.  I then pushed it up to 7:30 and ran for as long as I could.  It didn't last too long - only about 0.15 miles - but realize that this was after already running 3 miles so I wasn't too disappointed.  I alternated between 7:30 and 9:00 for the rest of the last mile.  My conclusion was that I think my original declaration was probably correct.  One of my goals for this year is to run a race with 8:00 splits.  The Broad Street Run might be too ambitious (it's a 10-miler) but I think the Race for the Cure (5K) is possible.