Sunday, September 14, 2014

Underdressed and overburdened

Warmer gear was out of reach
Today's run (street): 3.4 miles

I could tell before I went out this morning that I'd have a difficult time, but that didn't actually happen until I was on my last mile. It's been a busy weekend and I (once again) got outside before our guests awoke. The temperature was 54° around 7:00 AM and I wanted to wear a long sleeved running shirt. Unfortunately, all my running gear was in a cabinet behind the guest room door.

Prior to the arrival of our visitors, I'd taken two sets of running clothes from the cabinet. With the relatively warm weather, I didn't anticipate the need for warmer choices. I have many long sleeve race event shirts in my bedroom, but even with a temperature in the 50's and 72% humidity, I didn't want to wear cotton. I decided to tough it out and go with short sleeves and shorts.

Stepping outside, I was reminded of the feeling I get the morning of a fall race. The temperature felt chilly, the way it often does when we line up for the start, under-layered to help manage the increasing heat later in the race. I was tempted to push hard to build some heat, but I wasn't feeling energetic enough to do that. Last night's high carb dinner failed to translate into a hoped-for glycogen payoff.

It didn't take long to get used to the cool air and I ran comfortably through the neighborhood until about the 2.5 mile mark. At that point I encountered a woman who was running north slightly ahead of my direction and I tried to stay on pace with her. After a few minutes I realized that she had an eight cylinder engine working at max capacity and I was a steam engine that was almost out of steam.

I managed to recover enough to resume my pace, but I was ready to return home short of my originally targeted distance. In a way, I lucked out by running with lighter clothing than I thought I'd need. The persistent chill likely energized me through this run.

I'm getting a little tired of under performing on my runs. I realize that I have to put some hard work into my training to get to prior performance levels. I can't face intervals, fartleks and hard tempos these days. I'm hoping that the increasingly cooler weather will motivate me to do those things.

6 comments:

  1. Oh, it's bound to! Don't you just LOVE running in the fall?!

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  2. I would love 3/4 of the year to be fall. Something about the combination of sights, sounds and smells on a fall morning run. Most of my best races have happened in September, October and November.

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  3. I agree there's something about fall running, but I think all the seasons have their pluses. Some lady passed me on my 7th mile today like she was late for the bus. I tried to catch up with her, but was able to just maintain the distance between us until she detoured. I pretended she was on her 1st of a 3 mile run to make me feel better :)

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    Replies
    1. That's funny - I always think that when people pass me, it's because they are just starting out while I've been slogging on. I do love running in other seasons, early spring and except for ridiculously freezing conditions, even winter.

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    2. Oh, she also had headphones on. Obvious advantage.

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    3. Yes, that's not fair. You're probably much faster than her.

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