Winter Running and other ruminations

Here in Central New York State, we are well into winter running. We have had an extremely mild winter so far. Yesterday, January 17th, the temperature was in the teens with single digit wind chills. There were extreme cold alerts last night and school delays this morning with below zero temperatures. Right now, at 7:30am, it is -3 with a wind chill approaching -20. I'll have all my layers on today!

Back to yesterday. A single word best describes the run. Yes it was cold outside, but that's not the word. Yes, the wind made it colder, but that's not the word. The word is "sun". WOW. Ya gotta love winter running when the sun is out in full force like it was during the run. I wore my sunglasses for the first time in a good number of days. I can't even recall when I last wore them.

When I was sheltered from the wind, I actually felt over dressed. I would unzip my outer layer to help vent some of the body heat. That is, until I turned the corner and got hit with a full blast of the wind.

Running on a sunny day in the winter is pure joy. I come into work in the morning in the dark. I sit at a computer under horrible lighting conditions. I drive home in the evening in the dark. I gotta tell ya: it sucks. Except when I get out in the sun. The sun cancels out the bad aspects of winter. You might ask "then why run when the sun isn't out?". That is a reasonable question. The short answer is simply and honestly: "because I can". I'm lucky enough to be able to run, so I do. I have my health and I enjoy doing it. Ya also can't discount the shock factor. There are two shocks. One to your system: "HOLY CRAP, it's cold." After a cold run, any of the day's other challenges are a piece of cake. The second shock is the co-workers: "You're going/went out in that? What are you nuts? Do you know you are going to freeze your lungs?" I can't deny that I get a kick out of that reaction.

But how 'bout that sun! It was so nice to see it that it motivated me to post a blog. That's something I haven't done in a while. But, the sparse posting doesn't reflect the my running. For the most part, I've been getting it in as usual. Same distances (usually 5 miles). Same frequency (usually each work day at lunch). There have been two bumps on the road. The first was mid November with a wicked cold and the second was mid/late December to early January with a slight "upper leg/inner thigh/groin-ish" injury. I took some time off and ramped back up slowly. I'm running very slow now and working the core area to try to strengthen up that area. Sometimes it feels "tired" but nothing like the day in December when I knew there was a problem. The leg was so sore that I couldn't support myself on one leg. But I think I'll keep taking it slowly and hopefully the improvements will continue. I'd like to add a long run back into the schedule but I don't want any set backs. I'm just taking it day by day.

Since this is my first post of 2005, here are some stats from my geeky running spreadsheet [why is this HTML table injecting so much blank space? Preview mode doesn't do this. Publish mode does.] :

Year	Total Miles	Number of runs
2003	1122	214
2004	1319	217

I hope to look at each week and month and see what I see. I find it interesting to look at the numbers and see if anything jumps out. For example, I was pleased to discover the fact that in 2004 I only ran 3 additional runs compared to 2003 but the total miles was up by nearly 200 miles. That reflects a change in jobs. The switch resulted in a change in my running course from indoors on a 1/20th of a mile track to outdoors on local neighborhood streets and a situation where 5 miles is the "normal" distance. Also reflected in each year's total is a marathon in each of those years. 2003 was the Wineglass and 2004 was Buffalo. This year, I'd like to do both of them. Buffalo, at the end of May, is questionable. I may not be able to push the leg enough to get the training in. If I can't start long runs soon, I'll run out of sufficient training time and I'll have to forget about it. But, as I've said, I'm going day-by-day. After all, what else is there to do?

Also, a quick update on how my fall/winter races compared to what I thought I might do (as posted on 10/12/2004):

1. Wellsville - Ran it. Posted it.
2. Welch Allyn - Didn't run it.
3. Brueggers - Ran it. Posted it.
4. Mendon Ponds - Didn't run it.
5. Grunt Run - Ran it. Might post it.
6. Jingle Bell - Ran it. May post it.
7. B'ville Turkey Trot - Didn't run it.
   

Ok, I guess that's enough for this "sun inspired" post. If anything worthwhile pops up, I'll be back. I'm sure you can't wait!