Windy season

Track season has arrived.  In southeastern Idaho, this means the winds start howling.  Wind can seriously effect your times when running, so when planning workouts and races, it helps to know what kind of weather you are facing.  Instead of investing in some fancy schmancy wind meter, I have devised some ways of determining how wind will affect my run for the day. 

#1: Most effective in the early morning, I call this the donut detector.  There is one grocery store in town, and depending on how many blocks away and in which direction I can smell the donuts, I can easily estimate in which direction and how strongly the wind is blowing.  

#2:  The fried chicken check. Similar to the donut detector, but it works in the afternoon.  

#3:  The pony tail windsock:  this is the most reliable and specific of my wind meters.  If you want resistance training, you want to run so that your ponytail blows straight behind you, so you are running directly into the wind.  If you are doing an out and back run, you want your ponytail to be blowing sideways, so that you never have a direct headwind, but you will have cross wind the whole time.  If your ponytail is blowing directly into your face, you have a killer tailwind, and you will run your fastest times. However, you may want to phone a friend to pick you up at the edge of town rather than turn around and run back. 

If I am feeling wimpy, I usually plan my hard days so I warm up into the wind, run repeats with the wind behind me, then recover into the wind again, so all my fast running is with the wind.  If I'm up for a challenge, I run on the track where it all balances out.  If I were really tough, I would do all my running into the wind, but that is just exhausting.  

Whichever way you run, you are now tougher for doing it, and therefore, more awesome. 

 Happy running.  

If all sports were like track...

I have been spending too much time watching the Winter Olympics lately.  Besides making me grateful for a (sometimes) summer sport, I'm often find myself thinking how much better all sports would be if they were patterned after running sports.  In track, you know exactly where you stand the whole time. if you are the first guy to the finish line, you win.  Easy. End of story.  No judges to arbitrarily award or deduct points based on your style while running. No prizes based on artistic interpretation or costume choice or music or any other such nonsense. (Seriously, figure skating?) No waiting for the contestants to go one at a time.  It is you, the clock, the other competitors.  At the finish line, you know exactly how you did and where you finished, and that has been within your control the whole time. 

In fact, not only do you know where you stand any given day, you know where you stand in all of history.  A mile today is exactly the same distance as when Sir Roger ran it sixty years ago.  No questions about the best runners of all time; it is all written in the history books. 

But I digress.  Think about how much improved it would be if they put all the figure skaters out there at the same time.  First one to complete all required elements wins.  Or maybe last one standing, if you want it to be an endurance event. (Then again, maybe we already have that event and just call it hockey....) And do we need to have individual ski racing and group ski racing? Seems to me if you put them all out there at once and let them race down the mountain it would be a bit more efficient time-wise.  Short track speed skaters seem to get it, but long trackers have only partly figured it out.  Put everyone out there at the same time and let strategy (and fate, perhaps) duke it out, cross-country style.  I don't even know what to do about curling, but if suspect it should fall into the recreational activity category more than finely tuned athletic event anyway.

Now, I don't mean to disparage any of the fine athletes representing their countries at the olympics.  Heck, they do lots of things I could never dream of attempting.  I just think we could redesign some rules to make some of the events a tad more exciting.  If it requires a judge, a costume, and music, it can be an amazingly athletic performance, but it might not be a good sport. I prefer sports that are honest and straightforward and not open for error by judges or interpretation. 

By the way, did you ever notice most Olympians train by running? Just saying....

Go team. 

Running truisms

There are several things that I have discovered while running through life.  Science will not back me up on any of these things, but if you have run enough you just might find yourself nodding in agreement at some of them.  

The hills are always longer going up than they are coming down.  

You never gain with the wind at your back what you lose with the wind in your face.  

No matter which direction you are headed, the snow will blow into your face.  

Two minutes of running a hard mile is much longer than two minutes in a marathon. 

One minute of recovery time will always go by twice as fast as one minute of hard  interval time.

It doesn't matter how many toilets there are at the starting line, it will never be enough.

It doesn't matter how many times you have been to the bathroom before a race, you will always have to go when you are on the starting line. 

You will know you are training hard when you start having nightmares in which either you can't run very well or you never get to stop.  

You will know you are training hard when your workouts start resembling your nightmares. 

No matter how fast you are as an adult, you will never be as fast and it will never be as easy as you remember it being when you were younger. But you will keep running anyway.  

That's terrific. I think.

I have been pondering the word "terrific" lately while I have been running.

My logic goes like this: if something is horrific, it is filled with horror and leads to a horrifying experience. Yet if something is terrific, is it terrifying or filled with terror? Or does it mean fabulous, as we commonly intend.  

The answer, because I know you have lost sleep over this, is yes and no.  I looked up the origin of the word terrific. Turns out, in the 1600's terrific meant "full of terror".  Somewhere in the early 1800's, the meaning morphed from "full of terror" to just "very great or severe".  Finally around 1889 we colloquialized the word to mean "excellent", adding the positive connotation.  

As a crusader to improve consistency of usage of the English language, I would offer suggestions for how to properly use the word terrific, regardless of the time period in which you live, and especially as it applies to running situations.  

Correct usage 1677: 

If someone asks, "how was your run?" And you respond, "terrific! I ran 3 sets of 20 400's at mile pace."  

That is correct, because that workout is truly terrifying.  

Correct usage1809: 

"How was your run?"

 "Terrific! I  puked my guts out."  

Correct use of terrific, because it is must have been very severe to make you puke, and it is terrifying for me to imagine exactly what happened.  Also, TMI.

Correct modern usage:  

"How was your run?"

"Terrific! I felt great and hit all my paces.  I'm ready to PR."

It is correct because terrific, here, means really excellent.  It is also correct original usage if I am trying to inspire terror into an opponent, like when I am talking to my brother in law and he knows I will beat his time.  He will recognize both meanings of terrific.  

Now go amaze your friends with your new wonderful grasp of the English language. And never again wonder if the things you think about while you run are weird.  It just might make you smarter.  

Pay attention

Just when you thought you had seen it all in distance running, another barrier is pushed back.  Alberto Salazar and his team Oregon Project just may make us rethink traditional training practices.  Over the last ten days, Galen Rupp, coached by Salazar, ran American indoor records in the 5000 meters (13:01.26) and 3000 meter (8:07).  He will make an attempt on the American (3:49.89) and world record (3:48.45) in the mile in two weeks time.  The kid is on fire.  

But the race was only half of the story.  Shortly after running a race at a pace normally used by vehicular traffic, camera crews filmed him doing another workout.  Rupp took about 15 minutes to enjoy the moment, sign autographs, and catch his breath, then he changed shoes and took to the track again.  This time by himself, he ran 5x one mile repeats, with about 3 minute recovery in between.  His paces were 4:21, 4:20, 4:20, 4:16, and, brace yourself, 4:01.  By himself. On an indoor track.  Shortly after setting the American record in the 3000.  He nearly threw down a sub-4 mile.  Now, I know the four minute barrier was broken long ago, but the group of people who belong to that group is still pretty exclusive, and the group that can run sub four alone in workouts is even smaller.  And then Coach Salazar casually mentions that Rupp hasn't even started his taper yet, but has done that all on tired legs.  I haven't studied a lot of elite training programs, but I can only imagine Rupp must be running an enormous load of miles to even attempt this kind of workout.

Maybe Rupp is a genetic gift to the sport of running who can handle an amazing work load. Maybe Salazar has tapped into some previously untried methods of training that are yielding great results. And maybe apprentice and master have just connected at the right time.  But whatever the case, Galen Rupp is showing the world that to beat him, they will have to outwork him, and that won't be easy.  

I don't know about you, but I think the future of American distance running is in good hands (or legs), for a while.  And I will definitely be watching that mile on February 15.

One last thing: the life lesson I see here is that if you want accomplish things no one else has done you have to be willing to work in a way no one else has ever worked.  

Priorities

About a month ago I had the chance to slow down for a bit.  My oldest boy landed in the hospital with a ruptured appendix, requiring about a week long hospital stay right before Christmas.  My husband and I quickly figured out that between staying with him and caring for the other kids, anything non-essential wouldn't get done, which meant no running for me. Suddenly something that consumes a fair amount of my time was sacrificed.  And surprisingly,  I was okay with it.  

Now maybe I needed a break anyway, and I'm sure I would have found time to run had his stay been much longer, but I was grateful for the chance to recognize that some things are still more important than others.  It was okay to take time off for my kid when he needed me. And now that things are back to normal (ish) I am running again with increased gratitude for the little things, like health, home, and  simple happiness. 

Happy running. Or happy time off. Either way, enjoy it while you can.

Road closed

Did you ever notice how a road closed for an event is like a cattle call for runners? Officials may as well put up a sign saying  "run here" as a barricade announcing road closures for a parade.

I was able to attend the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California,  this year on New Year's Day.  And what a way to ring in the new year.  But the interesting thing to me is that beginning about five a.m. when the roads are officially closed to traffic, the streets become full of runners. It was amazing.  People emerge from the sidelines, headed both directions up and down the parade route, with all different abilities, some costumed, many of whom camped out all night, everyone just running.  There is no official race, and while it would probably be a money-maker, it would ruin the freedom of the day. Instead, you pick the distance, pace, and starting line.  Some spectators notice and cheer, others ignore you completely, but there is a camaraderie among the runners.  Sometimes you have to weave in and out of other parade goers, but that just adds flavor to the event. There is something exhilirating about running the streets that are normally jammed with cars, but now only busy with foot traffic.  You become the fastest moving vehicle, and it is exciting.  

Try it sometime.  Next time you see the roads closed, go for a run and enjoy the freedom of being free to run somewhere that is typically off limits. Happy running.