Winter Running Thread

[emily_in_nc]

Good going, Oak! It's definitely been a lot warmer lately. This morning I did my run at 8 am (early for me) to avoid the worst of the heat. It helps that my runs, including warm up/cool down walking and stretching, take less than an hour start to finish. I know you're doing super long runs, and that is difficult in the heat/humidity/sunshine.

[rocknrollgirl]

Good going, Oak! It's definitely been a lot warmer lately. This morning I did my run at 8 am (early for me) to avoid the worst of the heat. It helps that my runs, including warm up/cool down walking and stretching, take less than an hour start to finish. I know you're doing super long runs, and that is difficult in the heat/humidity/sunshine.

We are suffering here as well. It went from 19 degrees last Saturday to 73 yesterday afternoon. No time to acclimate. The trees are blooming about 6 weeks early so the allergies have started as well. Not pleasant at all. I really, really hope it is not hot on race day.

[Crankin]

When I rode on Wednesday, it was 77 at the end. I was wiped out. It was a fast ride for the beginning of the season, but, I get a certain horrible feeling from heat exhaustion, that can happen when it's not even that hot. I need lots of time to acclimate. The one 5K I ran was in 98 degree temperatures. No wonder my time of 34 minutes sucked.

[OakLeaf]

34 minutes is an extremely respectable time in 98 degrees! Yikes !

[rocknrollgirl]

So this was a week of testing out my recovery. Tuesday we did a short trail run, but ran all of the hills I have been avoiding. No issues. Today we ran long and added in all of the hills I have been avoiding, no issues. A hair over nine miles on the trail and no problems with my glute or hamstring. And I went into the run very fatigued from lifting this week. I am starting to realize that it may not have been caused by running hills, but by a combination of running hills, and doing my long runs too fast. I think all of the hard work the past 7 weeks is paying off, and my legs and glutes feel strong. So maaaaaaaaaaybe, just maybe I will come out on the other side of this injury stronger.

[OakLeaf]

RnR, that's great! Keep getting stronger.

It's been another up and down week for me. A lot of figurative running around last week left me tired. And with the bodywork from last week and the week before, I'm getting to the point of some major breakthroughs on some very old injuries and imbalances, like stuff that goes back to high school. Which on one level is spectacularly great, but on the other hand is changing my biomechanics in ways that aren't necessarily the best thing to do five weeks out from a race. Came time for Sunday's T-pace workout on another very hot day, and I just didn't have it in me. I dawdled and procrastinated away the morning, thought I might just modify the pace a bit, but stupid Garmin Connect was down and my watch doesn't let me edit workouts on the watch itself. As I told my DH, it wasn't that I was really feeling terribly beat up, it was just, if I could go another day without someone (including myself) beating me up, that would be great. So, I just did the mileage at an easy pace, and even that kind of beat me up.

Monday I took completely off. Normally I'd bike to yoga early-early and do a little recovery run before class. But between the time change and some worrisome soreness in one Achilles tendon, I just took a rest day. Drove down to the wildlife refuge to check on the bald eagles' nest and see what else we could see.

Today was even hotter, and my scheduled workout was intervals ... and it went fine. Hit all my numbers, and I don't feel excessively spent now, even with the heat. One thing I did, that I've been doing on most interval days, is to do my warm-up, then come back home for a quick ice water and a gel, then go back out to do my intervals on the MUP just across the road. Today I also set out an ice-cold wet towel in my little cooler. I'm pretty sure that's what let me complete the intervals successfully. Yay.

The only weird thing now is that my right ankle, the one that the Achilles isn't bothering me, is just sore. I'm pretty sure what's going on is that at least some of the ankle immobility I've had, actually comes from the hip and thoracolumbar restrictions that we've been working on. So all of a sudden my ankle is moving in ways that my muscles aren't used to supporting ... that's the ankle I sprained several times years ago, though it's been very stable for at least the past 10 years. Going to be keeping an eye on it and having some targeted conversations with the LMT. And definitely keeping on with the single leg raise/lower and balancing work that I've been diligent about *after* my Achilles started bothering me. Sigh.

[OakLeaf]

Ugh. My ankle is still sore. I'm pretty sure it's "only" iffy ligaments, but I made the mistake of asking Dr Google, and now I'm worried that it might be the talus cartilage. I was planning on getting a little jog in this morning to make up for skipping Monday, but wound up deciding it was probably a bad idea. The really frustrating thing is that everything else feels really good and I'm jonesing for a run. I put a brace on it to do the vacuuming and laundry this morning and it didn't get any worse, so at least that's something.