winter running

We’re Not Worthy!

I had a decent (but slow) trail run today (2 full loops of Bagley Nature Center and one short loop for a little over 4 miles), and while I was running these slow miles, I was once again wondering how I am ever going to complete a marathon before the cutoff. I mean, really, I know I could, because I could just walk the whole way and probably do it in fewer than 7 hours. Maybe. Not at the pace I was going today, but of course that was through snow. I’m not sure if that made enough difference though. We’ll see.

I read a lot of random message boards, social media, and articles about running, especially those that are long-distance running-related, and it seems like there’s a weird attitude about marathons and those who run them. Specifically, there’s an attitude that everyone and their mother runs marathons and everyone and their mother shouldn’t be. I do think it’s stupid to make a goal of running a single marathon just to check it off a bucket list, but I don’t think it’s stupid for more people to get interested in a sports. There’s also a weird attitude about slow people, like slow people don’t belong on the course. This attitude seems to come from people whose times I could only dream of, but who are solid middle-of-the-packers. Slow runners don’t belong in the first corral or at the front of the starting line of a race, no. Slow runners need to watch where they’re running and not clog up the course, but so do medium runners and fast runners. All runners need to be respectful of others on the course, but it’s usually the slow runners who take the heat for making mistakes or being rude on a course.

I also see people question individuals who are running marathons, wondering why they would want to. Why not run a 5K? Why not start out with a little bitty race and leave the big marathons to those of us who were running marathons before it was cool (aka they’ve run like four of them)? Maybe I’m projecting a little. I can’t answer this question on behalf of all runners, but I can answer it for myself.

I’m not interested in training for a 5K right now. I am signed up for one, but that’s really just a training run and a chance to figure out how to behave at a race before I get lost or miss the bus or show up late for a marathon. I just don’t see the point of training for a 5K as a goal race when I am so slow. Most people could just drop by a 5K on the day of, wearing jeans and flip-flops, and throw down a better time than I could. Well, maybe not most people, but enough that I find it embarrassing. Plus I don’t have any interest in doing speed work and track workouts in the middle of winter. I also want to get into trail and ultra running once my endurance and speed have improved, so training for a 5K isn’t going to do much good for me. I’d rather race through the woods for 12 hours than get stampeded by a bunch of zippy 5Kers.

I’m still not sure I want to run a marathon yet. I’m not sure I’m fast enough to complete the training without it completely taking over my life. Obviously I am one week in and I am still running based off my goal heart rate of 142 bpm, so I am not sure where I’m really at. My plan right now is to continue with the heart rate training restriction until Week 6 of the marathon training plan (so the week of March 23rd), when the training plan has its first medium run as well as its first planned hill workout. I do think the training has been working, as I didn’t have such a heck of a time getting up the large hill at Bagley without my heart rate shooting through the ceiling, but I have decided it’s not going to work very well for this training cycle. I’m still going to keep 142 bpm as a goal heart rate for any “easy” run, but I’m going to have to abandon that pace for medium runs and tougher runs.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to do an entire training cycle with heart rate training, but as of now, these sad 17:xx paces aren’t going to cut it. I suppose if I see some significant improvements in the paces I can achieve once the snow is gone and the weather warms up a bit (and I mean to the 30s and low 40s, I’m managing my expectations) maybe I can revisit that plan, but I don’t anticipate becoming a (relative) speed demon just because the windchill isn’t torturous.

No matter what I decide to do, I would like to extend both of my middle fingers to anyone who looks down on slow runners. We’re all slow relative to someone else.

Week 1 Update

I’m mostly through my first week of “marathon” “training,” which actually feels like “slightly shorter than a normal week” “training.” I had to take an unexpected rest day on Thursday when I came home from work at 6:00, took my coat off, and realized it was really cold in my house. 55 degrees, in fact. The furnace blower had gone out, and I had to wait to get that fixed, then wait for the house to warm up again. I huddled under the covers with my cats and the heated mattress pad on while I waited for the house to heat up, dressed in my workout clothes, planning to take advantage of the slightly cooler house so I didn’t have to turn a fan on. Unfortunately, being cold basically all day (since it barely got above 0) left me sleepy, and I decided to skip the run.

Yesterday I forced myself to run outside since it was in the teens and not too windy. Since it snowed, the sidewalks were mostly horrible. I wore my shoe chains in order to give myself some traction, but it was an unpleasant run. My legs were burning from the effort of running in the new snow, although it’s still preferable to running in sand! I ended up with all 4 (well, 3.93) miles in the 17:XX pace (actually no, the final 0.93 miles were at an 18:26 pace, ew), which was disappointing, especially since I didn’t hit my heart rate target (average BPM was at 147). Overall I was just thrilled to be running outside rather than on the treadmill. I keep looking at the 10 day forecast and it only looks like a few more terrible days are in the forecast… unless there are some lurking just over the horizon. Some mid-40s temps by mid-March would be glorious, especially after last March was still so bitterly cold.

On another note, I need to buy a new winter coat because my current one is about 10-11 years old, is dirty, and the zipper is wearing out at the bottom. They are a lot more expensive than I thought, even on end-of-season clearance (this is what happens when one goes a decade between coat purchases), which is annoying, because there are a couple of running accessories I want (a hydration vest, a new top layer for running outside in cold weather that actually has ZIPPERED POCKETS, and a new sports bra) and those will have to wait. Unless I end up with a teeny tiny tax return, in which case the coat will have to wait, too. I have a backup coat somewhere that’s even older than my current coat; it is orange and I won it at the all-night party after graduation. It’s a nice coat but is also kind of dingy. With all the salt and sand and dirty slush around, it’s hard to avoid. Here’s hoping I only have another month where a winter coat is required!

Trail Review: Minnesota Point (Winter)

I really, really love this trail, but it does have some drawbacks.

This is not one of the drawbacks.

The Minnesota Point trail is a mix of access road, single-track, and wider trails that extend to the very tip of the spit. It’s somewhere between 4 and 4.6 miles, depending on which route you take. I took a longer way out than I did back, hugging the edge of the Superior Bay side, and then cutting back in at Point Zero Lighthouse. The ruin of the lighthouse actually once stood at the tip of the spit, but sand deposits from the lake changed the location of the harbor entry. I saw it on an episode of Lost Duluth on public television last summer, which was what prompted me to head out there in the first place.

The major drawback to the trail is the terrain. Much of it is sand. Running in sand is annoying. I am sure that it was a good strength workout for my legs, or something, but it is still incredibly annoying. I had hoped since it was winter, the sand would be compacted and covered in a bit of snow, but that was not the case.

All the snow had blown off the trail, I think. That’s the other drawback to the trail in winter. The vicious wind. At the beginning of the run, I was questioning if I was appropriately dressed, and if I had made a horrible mistake. One side of my body was being pummeled. The trail heads into the woods early on into the run, so I was somewhat shielded, but it was whistling and howling above me through the treetops, which made me imagine it was colder than it was.

Those are the only two drawbacks to the trail (in winter). The rest is beautiful. There are a few small “mounds” but no great changes in elevation, the sand was a little bit compacted so it was easier to run in than it is during warmer temperatures, and the scenery is amazing. Some of the trail is in the trees, other parts along the shoreline, and the end of it is…

…even better in person. The only downside is having to look at Wisconsin sometimes.

It’s still better in the summer (despite the sand), because the sound of the waves against the shore is heavenly, but it is a great place for a hike or a run. It is not a great place for speedwork or tempo runs. I don’t know what the trail grooming is like if there is snow, I’ll try to get out there when/if it snows a bit more to see. The trail, other than the sand, is not difficult; there aren’t trees or boulders or other obstacles. In a few spots the trail gets a little overgrown, but it’s not too hard to push a few branches out of the way.

A great long run would be an out-and-back of the entire strip of land, from the lift bridge to the tip and back again. I have run from the entrance to the park to the lift bridge and back (which is about 7.5 mi) but I’ve never put the two together. Sounds like a bucket list item for a time with warmer temps and a better training base.

On The Tundra

It was a little bit colder yesterday than I realized, until I was out on the street for a run.

First of all, the cold weather makes it nearly impossible to keep my heart rate down. If it’s in the 30s, or even the 20s with no wind (a rarity around here), it’s only a problem at the beginning, but it was down in the teens yesterday and felt a lot worse than that, and at 19:xx paces I was still hovering above 142 bpm for the first half a mile or more. This training is really not ideal for cold weather. A blog I read, Miss Zippy, had the same trouble keeping her heart rate down in the cold and has had to give up on MAF training for this training cycle. I laughed because she lives in Baltimore and blamed the “very cold temperatures” for her heart rate issues. I find it funny when the 20s or 30s are called “extremely cold,” unless we’re talking about 20 or 30 Kelvin, in which case, yes.

A couple miles in, I was up near the UMD campus, crawling along the gradual but interminable incline along College Ave between Woodland and Junction, trudging pathetically along at a 17:xx pace, my path was crossed by a pack of actual fast runners. There were probably 6 or 7 of them, all tall, leggy, and graceful, all at the same pace, all making that pace look effortless even though it’s probably a pace I could only dream of. I felt like a walrus watching a pack of caribou prance by.

I was under-dressed for the weather and for the pace I was forced to take, but it took me awhile to realize that. I didn’t realize that running so slowly, keeping my heart rate low, would keep my body from warming itself up as I went along. I was 2 or so miles into the run when I realized I wasn’t warming up. The skin on my face, forearms and thighs was stiffening up, which indicated I’d already gotten a bit of frostbite. It’s fine to start out cold, I usually do, but by that point I should have been warmer. I was still just under 2 miles from home, and I realized I was facing another 25-30 minutes outside if I kept following the heart rate restriction.

With 1.5 miles to go, I cheated. I turned on the jets and let my heart rate skyrocket into the 170s or 180s and zoomed (for me) the rest of the way home.

Splits:
17:35
18:42
15:59
11:31

Oops. Also, FYI, I’m not really that fast, it was all downhill. It did feel amazing to run “fast” for me again, and I did start to warm up a bit as I charged along. I still ended up having to take a shower to warm up, which was probably not very good for the affected skin. It all turned bright red and started to itch. I need to be more careful.

I think kicking it into high gear at the end of a run when I’m cold and haven’t run fast in a long time as a sign that this slow aerobic training I’m doing is working, or at least is not detrimental. I also think I need to check the weather report before I go out, and I need to cover my legs better to block the wind. (I usually cover my arms better, with 2 layers of long sleeves.) I also need to stop writing this post and get dressed for today’s run.

Two A Days

Hahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahhaahahahahahahah!

Yes, even thinking of doing actual two-a-day runs is hilarious. I didn’t. What I did do is meet up with a friend during my break between classes and take her dog for a walk. I wore my watch but not my heart rate monitor, as that would have been both ridiculous and obsessive. We went for a loop and a half walk around Bagley Nature Area, which was about 2.5 miles. Loki found some squirrels in a tree and almost lost his mind over them.

I ended up getting my pants soaked with snow and my friend drove me back home so I could change before I went back to class. I also ended up getting insanely sweaty because I wore my winter coat, which was a dumb idea. I’m fairly certain I exceeded my heart rate targets going up that stupid hill, but I’m also confident I stayed well below the target most of the rest of the walk.

After I got home for good, I made a poor but tasty choice for a late lunch (I eat at weird times): a bagel and cream cheese (not the poor choice) and the rest of the pulled beef I’d had for dinner a few nights ago. It was glorious and delicious and I felt gross the whole half hour I spent on the treadmill an hour or so later. Yet another slow and demoralizing session on the treadmill. I need to make better food choices, I guess.

While I think two-a-days for someone like me are ridiculous, I did like making use of my break to do something outside. It’s something I can consider in the future: stop by my car, drop off my backpack, and run for an hour between classes. So I’m sweaty in class later, no big deal. It’s an opportunity to get a run in before it gets dark, and avoid the treadmill for another day. I have to find a way to avoid kicking up snow behind me and soaking my pant legs.

Meep Meep

Road running!

Since school has started, I’ll be able to get home when it’s light out three days a week (I work the other two days). Or at least I will until classes really ramp up and I’m stuck working on assignments til midnight.

I have a few general comments on my approach to road running.

1. I am a fairly strict obeyer of traffic laws. Even if there’s no one coming, I won’t cross against the light. I run on sidewalks as much as possible and run opposite traffic when I can’t. I hate when drivers who have the right of way motion me through. I also won’t cross unless I make eye contact with the driver and see them motion me through, even if I have the right of way. If I can’t see them, I will stand there all day if need be. I always give a thumbs-up of acknowledgement, so that I can show I’ve seen them and appreciate it, instead of waving, which could cause confusion. Safety is such an integral part of my profession (engineering) that it carries over into my daily life. I am the poster woman for Defensive Pedestrianism.

2. I don’t pause my watch for stoplights, stop signs, untied shoes, wedgie picks, or any other reasons. I understand that it can skew splits, but those aren’t real splits anyway, if I stopped in the middle. By that logic, I could run 200m 8 times with breaks in between and call the aggregate time my mile time. It doesn’t matter anyway, no matter what, I’m still slow! I also don’t plan on making excuses for the slow times associated with a long layover at a stoplight, or pointing out how many times I stopped. My times are my times. Voila.

Okay, now onto yesterday’s run, specifically. I wore my shoe chains, since there are a lot of jerks on my route who haven’t shoveled the sidewalks in front of their homes, myself included. It was a good idea because while there were stretches of clear sidewalk, there was slush, packed snow, and ice along the way. It slowed me down a bit, as did the annoying long hill that lasted the entire first mile of my run. This is not a flat city. Running on the sidewalks in Duluth is also at times more technical than a trail. Not only are there a lot of hills, there’s large cracks in the pavement, slabs of pavement jutting up just waiting to trip an unsuspecting runner checking her heart rate for the millionth time, and spots where it feels like I’m running sideways due to the slant of the path.

I felt pretty good, certainly better than I ever do running on a treadmill. I had the same problem with my heart rate monitor I did last weekend, with the spikes at the beginning. I don’t know if that’s due to the shock to my system from breathing cold air or what, but I “cheated” and ran at a higher heart rate at the beginning since I was already going pretty slowly and I knew it would settle down. I was right. I power-walked a fair amount up the first hill but that was the only one I had to walk up, and on the way down I was flying! Giggity!

Splits:
18:49
16:21
14:45
17:06 (pace for the last 0.98)
Average heart rate: 140 bpm

After I got home, I put my coat on and walked to the convenience store 2 blocks away and bought some Powerade (Strawberry Lemonade), pretzel M&Ms, peanut butter crackers, and motor oil. Both my car and I were filled with delicious, nutritious sustenance.

Decaffeinated

As I suspected in my post on Wednesday, caffeine was affecting my heart rate. I cut down to one cup a day (12 oz) the rest of the work week, and noticed I could run a bit faster on the treadmill at the same heart rate. It’s not an amazing leap forward, but I’m not doing myself any favors by artificially inflating my heart rate even a few beats.

Cutting down my coffee intake has made me feel pretty crappy the past few days. I suppose that’s a sign that I’ve made the right decision to cut back. I held fast even though Friday I was feeling really gross, with a headache and sort of general malaise, and it was a rest day, so it wouldn’t have mattered, and I went to a hockey game after work, so the energy would have been welcomed. Yesterday I let myself sleep as long as I needed to, which helped, and I didn’t have my usual glorious post-run latte, so I’m hoping I’ll level off soon. Just in time to go back to school, where I will have three lattes a day sometimes just to survive. Hooray.

Yesterday I also took advantage of the warmer weather to run outside. I went down to the Lakewalk, my old standby. I wanted to try running on more even terrain so I didn’t have to plod up a hill at a 40 min/mile pace with my heart rate still spiking at 160.

I didn’t wear my shoe chains since it has been warm enough to melt any built-up ice that might have been on the path. There was a bit of snow cover in places but I didn’t slip. Unfortunately, when I started off, I wasn’t able to get my heart rate under control. I really don’t know why, but it was spiking and then dropping and then spiking again for the first few minutes of the run, so I had to go pretty slowly to start off with. My first mile was the slowest.

Splits:
17:00
15:58
16:13
15:53
15:39 (0.46 mi)

See? That makes no sense. After the first mile I had no trouble keeping my heart rate down, other than the little inclines. I don’t know if there was a problem with the monitor at first, or if breathing in cold air was affecting me, or what, but I’m glad everything evened out. I got a little bit of a headache after my ears got cold, which ended up lingering awhile even after I was out of the cold. I also took a shower too soon after coming in from the cold, so my skin got all itchy and blotchy and it still felt cold to the touch in places after the shower.

A latte sounds amazing right now. Ugh, this sucks. But it’s for the best, right?