I've now finished three weeks of my training program for the Earth Day Half Marathon coming up in about nine weeks. Each week, I'm doing two speed workouts (speed being a relative term), one long run and a couple of medium length easy runs. Charlie usually accompanies me on those and keeps them nice and easy for us. This week, my long run was already 12 miles with four of those being race pace. I debated for several days, checking weather reports, to decide if I should try that run outdoors or on the treadmill. Saturday morning arrived and it was -5 degrees with -14 windchill. That is on the cold end of my range, but within it, so I decided to venture outdoors armed with warm clothing and two new audio books downloaded from the library. The road conditions both on the roads and bike paths are still pretty icy and snow covered, so I opted to wear my clickers...our own term for shoe spikes. They make a clicking noise on pavement. Charlie ran the first three miles with me and then I took him home. At that point, I was still considering going back inside to finish my run, but put Charlie in and headed back out. I had already encountered one pair of runners with blinking lights on their vests happily waving and calling out "Good Morning!" and another duo of young guys on the path. If others were making it outside, I would, too. After leaving Charlie off at home, I encountered another pair of runners also appearing to be delighted to be out running. While I was enjoying my new mystery novel surrounding the murder of the leader of the local croquet group, I picked up the pace for a few miles aiming toward race pace. I accomplished two sub-9:00 miles and was happy with that because I was going into an icier stretch. I haven't run more than 10 miles since September or October, so combining a longer run, a couple of faster miles and cold temperatures was a great start to my Saturday morning. When I was getting back home, I met yet another group of runners, this time about six of them headed past my house. Suddenly, the lightbulb came on for me and I figured out why I was seeing so many runners out on a pretty borderline weather day...having a friend or group to run with makes all the difference. I was running solo, but didn't encounter another singleton out there; everyone else was in pairs or more. Had I had a partner for my run, I wouldn't have questioned for a minute if it was too cold or icy. Runners will put up with a lot of yuck from Mother Nature to chat with their running buddies. I remember one year doing marathon training, I was out of Gu gels to snack on along the way of a long run, so I looked around the house for an alternative and peeled a clementine orange and put it in a baggie in my pocket. By snack time, the orange was frozen! How cold must it have been for something close to my body to actually freeze?!? I definitely did not do that run alone. Once I finished my cold 12 miles, I indulged in a long hot shower and some tea before heading off to yoga to stretch my muscles and hopefully avoid too much soreness. I was quite thankful that the sub instructor has just returned from maternity leave and was teaching back to back classes. She announced that we would be doing gentle yoga as everyone there had either been running or doing barre class beforehand. Thank you, Dawn!
I hope you thought twice before letting any cold weather interrupt your weekend plans, especially if they involved getting together with others, because that makes all the difference. Happy President's Day to all the Presidents or anyone who would like to be President or has any advice for Presidents, LOL! Due to the snow days in January, we will be having school tomorrow, but I'll get out and run beforehand. Happy running--Missee
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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