Long Run - 17 miles - 2:10

This was one of the most miserable runs I've had in a while. It was slow, cold and windy the whole run. It was in the low 40's and I was battling 20+ mph winds the entire run and I ran by myself the whole time. A number of people were racing on Saturday and some people had gone up to Conroe and I ran some before the 6:00 am start, but I was late getting to the base at 6:00 so I don't even know if any of the guys I run with showed up. The first part of the run went north up TC Jester to 610 and we were running straight into a headwind. I was doing 7:30's - 7:40's, but I was working to hit that pace. I had worn my arm warmer sleeves for the run which worked great, but I really wished that I had gloves. The windchill was in the mid 30's and my hands took a long time to warm up. I was able to pick up the pace a little coming back with a tail wind but I started slowing up again near the end when I had some more headwinds I was running into. By the time I got to 17 miles, I just didn't have it in my to pick up the pace for the last 6 miles and I didn't really see much benefit to going on at that point so I packed it on. On a positive note, my heartrate never averaged more than 149 bpm for a mile during the entire run. My avg heartrate over the entire run was 144 which is really slow for me. Usually I am hitting in the 150's - 160 for an easy recovery run. With such an easy run, I'll be a lot fresher for this coming week to get in a tough hill workout and a long tempo run.