Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Running Around Blizzards

Last Friday night we had a snowstorm that lasted well into Saturday. Tonight, Tuesday, we are expecting a blizzard that will last overnight and most of tomorrow. The training schedule which I have been following has me running three days a week with a day between runs for recovery, and I've also been running an extra day to accommodate our friends who want to train together on Saturdays, (M,W,F & Sat).

With the impending weather last week I ran on Monday, Wednesday, and then Thursday, anticipating no training on Friday or Saturday. Friday was clear enough once I got off work after all, so I did get my fourth run in. Saturday there was no finding the road under the two feet of snow, so I was glad to have gotten my days in already.

Now that we have a second snow event within one week, I ran yesterday- Monday- and again today, since the weather hasn't yet arrived. The snowplows have done a masterful job of clearing the roads from Saturday's storm, and they are clean and mostly dry, with occasional areas of slush. The snow is at least two feet deep on either side of the road up here on our hill, and the sun was shining gloriously bright yesterday. It was still shining this morning but in the past couple of hours the sky has begun to darken... the blizzard is most definitely on it's way.

The Road. Beautiful, isn't it?


I feel so much better knowing that my first two days of Week 4 are accomplished. This week the routine is a 5 minute warm-up walk followed by a 3 minute run, 90 second walk, 5 minute run, 2 1/2 minute walk, 3 minute run, 90 second walk and finishing with a 5 minute run and 5 minute cool-down walk. I'm not going to say that it was easy, that second 5 minute run sure got long, but I wasn't as aware of difficulty with my breathing this time. Once I'm finished with each run I come inside to stretch, and I suddenly realized that I was getting a lot more out of the stretching than I usually do. My forehead was pressed right down on my knee and I wasn't dying! I went to a real running store a couple of weeks ago to get the right pair of shoes for me- with some evaluation by the experts there, and I give them credit for reducing the aches and pains that were accompanying my running before.

The Shoes


Seeing improvement like that is certainly encouraging. Realizing that I am making a point to get outdoors even with snow on the ground is giving me hope that I can do this after all. The discipline required to actually train for an event may not be beyond my grasp, and if I can do this, I can accomplish other goals as well.

There are way too many "I"s in this post... Only one more.

"I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
(-Philippians 4:10-13)

2 comments:

Karen said...

Yes, that's a beautiful road. Are there any stret lights on that road?
Your shoes look great. I've come to appreciate that comfortable shoes are as important as conditioned lungs.
Keep up the good work. I've recited that scripture a lot while running, especially when I was doing C25K.
When is your race? Jimmy and I wish we'd known to walk early and often during our first race. We were overwhelmed by the music, the excitement, and the people pulling us along faster than we should have been running.

Barbaranne said...

Thanks Karen- the beauty is one of the reasons I'm enjoying running. There are no street lights- we are rural. At night if there's light it's because there are no clouds and the moon and stars are shining brightly.

I appreciate the note about getting carried away early in a real race with other runners- I sometimes start off too fast just on my own. I can imagine that others' energy would quickly wear off!

Thanks for being my running buddy!