As I gazed out through the pouring rain at the ice-glazed windshield of my car sitting in the driveway on Saturday morning, with piles of week-old snow still more than a foot deep on either side, I couldn’t help but be grateful that I’m not trying to train for a springtime race.
Injuries complicated my training period for last autumn’s half-marathon and, in addition to the crimp they put in my ability to keep to the training schedule I’d been given (my contrariness of nature also contributed, natch–it’s sorta the same as my inexplicable inability to stick to a recipe), the injuries added a whiff of emotional stress to the enterprise. I mean, I would get pissed when I couldn’t run as far as the schedule prescribed for this day or that day and then fear would eat away at me–fear that I’d bitten off more ‘n I could chew. And, yeah, I imagine the run lengths prescribed in the schedule aren’t carved in stone, but when it says to run 10k and I can’t go farther than 3k before my knee starts hurting and it’s gotten so bad that I hafta stop by 6k, well, you might begin to understand why I started to fear I wouldn’t be able to run the race. It was a stressful period. It made training for the race rather unpleasant, actually. The race, itself, however, while difficult, was a great experience.
Afterwards, when I went back to running, I found the fun again. The stress of race prep gone, I found that I looked forward to my after-work runs so much more than I had in the weeks running up to the race.
When folks asked if I was going to do another race in the spring, I said I had made no plans. In the back of my mind, then and now, my thoughts are about another autumn race. Another half-marathon. But nothing big sooner than that.
And I’m glad I made that decision early. Because although the long-range forecast was for a more-miserable-than-normal December followed by a milder-than-normal winter, it has been the opposite. The moment January hit, things went to hell and they’ve stayed there pretty much ever since. As soon as we get dug outta one dump of snow and/or ice, we get another. I’ve had three or four days when I couldn’t drive to work and have had to work from home. (There was only one day like that last winter.) And around these parts, while I believe there’s a bylaw that states you hafta shovel the snow off the sidewalk in front of your home or business, well, there are an awful lotta lazy folks who don’t bother. I seem to recall a similar situation when I lived in Tronna–wherein you basically had to tread in other people’s footprints to get anywhere unless you were right downtown. And then hike up and over Andes of snowpiles at each street corner. Anyhow, it means you can’t run on the sidewalks for days and days after a snowstorm.
If I had been planning on running a springtime race, I’d've started training for it in December. Prolly around Christmas. Maybe even right on Christmas Day. Back in ‘06, I started what I hope will be an annual tradition of going for a run on the afternoon of Christmas Day. In ‘06, I went for a run with my sis. This year, I went by myself, and was met with another first: I was chased by a couple of dogs as I ran down a sidestreet here in town. Little ankle-biting bastards–they were a short and compact breed with big mouths and lotsa short sharp teeth that I aimed my Sauconys at when they started barking and darting and snapping around my feet. I landed one good kick to the ribcage of one of ‘em, but I really wanted to connect with their toothy barking maws. The owner came running up and shooed them away, eventually (with me on the ground in the street, I kid you not, yelling at those fucking dogs as they made little lunges at me), and didn’t even apologize–which I thought was even worse behaviour than the dogs’. My swearing (at his dogs and then at him) was most unchristmassy. Anyhow, yeah, if I were training for a springtime race this year, that memorable run might’ve ushered in my training period and, yikes, what kind of omen would that have been? 
And if my training had started in December, I’d've been fit to be tied (not just figuratively, either, I suspect) because of the terrible weather since then. I mean, treadmills are fine in a pinch, but I wouldn’t want to have had to use them as much as I’d've had to if I was trying to keep to a race-prep schedule. They demand a little different technique. You’re not pushing yourself forward on those things as much as you’re just trying to keep up. I find them quite deceiving–I am able to run at a much faster pace on ‘em, but it doesn’t seem to translate when I get back outside and hafta start pushing myself forward again. I’d much rather be outside–even if it’s raining or snowing (well, to a point, anyway). But with the sidewalks impassable and the streets often barely better, I think I’d be more stressed out now than I was when I was limping around with a wonky knee a month or so before the September race.
It’s not just the snow and ice on the sidewalks and roads, either. It’s been damned cold this winter. I find it hard to breathe when I’m running in the cold–my nose runs faster than my feet, my eyes tear up, and it feels like I have a chestful of phlegm. Urgh. The local “Hyperthermic Half” race was held last weekend–on an appallingly cold and windy and snowy day–and my friend Laurie volunteered for it and described the runners coming in with patches of frostbitten skin and beards of snot and sweat frozen to their faces and, well, that just doesn’t sound fun to me.
So I don’t stress myself out when I can’t go for a run this day or that day or if I miss a swimming day or two because I’ve gotten home from work too late. S’no big deal. S’no pressure. And I can enjoy a long weekend like this one and feel like I actually accomplished something even when I didn’t hafta: on Saturday I worked out at the Y with my friend Kelly (who introduced me to the abductor/adductor, which should help with my hip joints that tend to tighten up) and then on Sunday we went to an aqua-jog class there, and today I went out in the flurries and ran 10k. Not because I hadda. But just for the helluvit. And it felt great. That feeling of accomplishment is one of the things I get from running that I love the most.
My brother-in-law sent me a list of recommendations from Runner’s World magazine today. Thought I’d share it after the jump below. (A proviso: the song recommendations aren’t mine. )
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