February Runs

[Anelia]

It's already February and the weather is perfect for running: cold temperatures, snow, sleet, ice. Of course, it's nothing that would stop us.
Today I ran 7,5 mile according to Garmin and 8,3 miles according to Sportstracker.
At first I felt very heavy and miserable on the uphill but then I got better on the flat.

[skhill]

I'm afraid it stopped me! Very snowy and icy and cold. I was going to go to the gym and hop on the treadmill, but changed my mind when I saw a police car sliding down the street when I took my dog out for her first piddle of the day. It's been a crazy week, warm enough to run outside in shorts on Monday and Tuesday, then too stormy to even get to the gym on Wednesday, very cold and windy on Thursday, and now 6F and icy on Friday. I am going to run on Saturday, even if I have to walk to the gym. (Yeah walking to the gym to use the treadmill is a bit weird....)

I'm not liking winter this year.

[indysteel]

Anelia, if I remember correctly from a past thread, you don't run all that often. You sure kick butt when you do! It's like pulling teeth for me to increase my average distance beyond the 10k mark.

Skhill, I feel your pain. This past week sucked in Indiana, too. I'm ready for spring.

[Anelia]

That's right, Indysteel, I run once a week. First my challenge was to beat 10 miles because my military students said that women CAN'T run. I said "watch me!"and I ran it with motivation to beat this misconseption. After having run 15 km, there are 3 or 4 to get home without calling my husband to pick me up. So I did this as my furthest distance. After running almost 20 k, it's not something difficult to run half of it.
At the beginning my HR was very high even with a light jog but now I can sustain even 130 and keep running. What I lack is speed and I have to work on shorter but more intensive runs but today was not the day: I felt heavy and slow...

[Artista]

Are you implying that it's not normal to feel heavy and slow while running In all seriousness, I always feel that way for the first 20 minutes. After a 20 minute warm up, I feel like I have wings on my heels. I'm hoping that it will take me less time to warm up as my body adjusts to running regularly.

[Anelia]

Thanks for comforting me, Artista It's not only me, then. What is more, when I go out, I have to climb a 3 km hill with ascend about 200 m so that I am in the forest nd strart running the flat part. Maybe it's not a good idea to start with a climb before warming up but this is the terrain we have...

[indysteel]

Wow; you have students who believe women can't run? I know women continue to face barriers in sport because of people's unfounded perceptions, but I thought we had at least established a heck of a long time ago that we can run for pete's sake. That's really sad.

In any event, I find it darn impressive that you can do 10-mile run with your training consisting of only one run a week. Good for you.

Artista, my legs don't feel heavy immediately into a run, but I hit a bit of a wall at the 2-3-mile mark. Once I'm past that, I feel better; it's just a question of going past three miles. If memory serves, people have indicated in past running threads on TE that they don't feel really warmed up until they've done 3-5 miles--depending on the person. These are people who have been running a long time, so I'm not sure it necessarily gets better with time. You just get better at running through it, which is what I'm finding. I used to just give up by the time I hit three miles. Now I have at least enough stamina--although, again, it's been like pulling teeth--to get to the 5-6 mark. I know it'll keep getting better, but I'm in awe of anybody who can run an hour or more on a regular basis. It's hard work.