"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Monday, November 21, 2011

What's that on the horizon... normalcy?

Spent some time reading a favorite book translated from not-ancient not-modern Greek and it had me take a look at things from a fresh perspective.

What if I'm not a special case? What if everyone else is right?

The thing to do right now is just get back into decent shape without trying anything fancy or clever.

Winter running

Some people love running in winter in Minnesota [insert insulting curse]. The first problem is that it's too cold to run long [and don't go telling me it's all a matter of proper clothing], but running short means spending as much time getting dressed and undressed as running. The second problem is that it's hard to run fast; you generate your own wind chill, the footing is bad and you're encased in layers of restricting clothing. And, if you try to escape by running indoors, you have the monotony of a treadmill or the pounding on slick cement or the expense of going half-way across town to weave between bored geriatric types while trying to keep track of hundreds of laps.

Looking at how I've tried to deal with the situation in years past, rather than do the short runs, I tend to skip them, then add the time to the next long one, ending up with nothing but hard runs.

Brief plan to get started again

Monday: 30 min. AM, 30 min. PM
Tuesday: 75 (preferably with some moderately faster running thrown in)
Wednesday: 30 AM, 30 PM
Thursday: 75 (preferably with some rolling hills)
Friday 30 AM, 30 PM
Saturday 75 (trying to keep a slightly faster pace than average)
Sunday 2:00-2:30

Boring? Kinda. Doable? Sure. Something I can stick to? Maybe.

5 comments:

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Looks like normalcy to you.

To me?

Nostrums.

PiccolaPineCone said...

ok. sounds good. but what's the goal? a specific race? general improvement in fitness? if so, can you put metrics on that? simply establishing consistency? i need to know where the ship is headed!

Keith said...

I would love to run outdoors in Minnesota. Because it's warmer than here. I admit that the layering is tricky.

Anonymous said...

Steve, too ambitious for the shape you are in. No doulbles and 2 days off a week until February. That will help you stay with your program and build from there when it starts to warm up.

Steve Stenzel said...

Ugg. I still need to come up with my winter running plan. Tis the season.... :)