Of Gloves and Hats: Training in January

 

Cold Weather Running 

It’s looking like a cold week here in Tulsa. But it’s January, so if not now then when?

We’ve had some seriously cold weeks in February over the last couple of years. Hopefully the bitter weather is gone by late February this year. The older I get the less I like the cold. Up north it was even worse. Even here though, the temperatures will certainly drop enough to be dangerous. The lows are supposed to be in the single digits on Sunday and Monday of next week. My running group jogs on Saturday morning. If it’s even into the teens, I think they should cancel. The wind is almost always impossible to push through, or keep off your face.

Not many of us have those gator neck things that go up over your mouth. No I won't buy one for what could be one day. At a certain point though, is it worth it? Not every run should be comfortable of course. We can’t just run when it’s sunny and dry. The nasty weather plays a part in toughening up your body. But at some point, it’s too damn cold. Running in icy wind is just dumb. You’re asking to get sick. Use a treadmill. Or just wait a couple of days and make up the miles on a better day.

 I add extra miles before the race anyway.

The second half of the training cycle forces me to increase my distances. I started doing this last year. If we were scheduled to run 16 miles I’d do 18. If the schedule said 18 I'd do 20 or 22. Naturally this was in the last month. We don’t reach those big mileages until quite late.

I learned that my body will go farther when I prepare for it. January and February are tough because I miss a lot of those outside training days. It’s not just the cold and wind, it’s also the darkness. If I ran after work I could probably mitigate some of this. Runner’sWorld meets at 5:30 on Monday and Thursday evenings. But it’s tough for me to get across town in such a short window of time. I can’t leave work until 5:00. I’ve never tried to make it. It would mean changing clothes quickly after and fighting through traffic. Having a gym to run at allows me to put in miles early and rest easy in the evening. Most of the runners hold their nose at the thought of using a treadmill, but it doesn’t bother me. It’s all mental for them. They don’t like the boredom of running in place and staring at a TV.

I’ll admit it feels like a longer run, but by changing up the speed and elevation it breaks up the monotony. I will jog through the neighborhood and along the river path again when the weather gets more amenable. Saturdays are still for group runs with the crew. But we also start between 7:00 and 7:30, which is later than I would run by myself. We usually get some morning light right after that as well. Even in the darkness, there is something about going together as a group that makes the elements seem easy to conquer.

I guess that's all mental for me. It feels colder in the dark even when it's not. 

I looked back at some of my running blogs recently. The weather might be the most talked about issue for me. Whine much? Sorry, I guess it’s kind of the X factor in training. Next is the pace, and finally the food question. Others might arrange them a little different however.

As for pace, I can't seem to settle on an appropriate speed. The program director insists that you should run 45 seconds to a minute slower than your race pace. But how does one develop a race pace? It’s not like we’ve all run a lot of marathons. Besides, there is such a thing as tempo running and speed work for the midweek stuff. The rule of thumb seems to be, run slow on the long Saturdays and do faster work the rest of the time. That’s where I’m at now. The biggest change for me has to be in diet. I’m convinced that my diet is off somewhere. I’m looking at knocking off between 20 and 30 minutes on the next race. I’ll probably need to lose some weight as well. 

If I stop focusing on the weather so much I’ll be able to add calories or something. Saturday morning is just a few days away. Wish me good luck and warm thoughts.