Back on the Karhu Fast 2's

Karhu Fast 2 -- I wish they ran as good as they look

Today's run (treadmill): 2.3 miles

I didn't want to deal with dark and icy roads this morning so last night I set up my gear for a treadmill workout. As much as I prefer running outdoors I do appreciate the time that I save in the morning by staying inside. I would usually choose my Saucony Kinvaras for the treadmill but the soles were caked with grime -- a combination of road salt, sand and mud. I wore the Kinvaras on Saturday after the snow plows and the residue from the street made them unsuitable for the tread belt. I decided to give the Karhu Fast 2's another chance. I was curious to see if I liked them any better after a few week's layoff.

I was tired this morning and needed my alarm to wake me up. I knew from my energy level that today would be a maintenance run and nothing more. I started slower that usual, around 6 mph, and gradually built my speed to 7 (an 8:34 pace). The Karhu's did fine but they just don't feel ideal for my stride. It may just be the height of the mid sole. Its "fulcrum" feature also may not well with my mid foot landing style. That didn't mean the shoes failed to perform, in fact they took everything I threw at them. It was really about the feel compared to my Kinvaras and GTS-10's that move more naturally with my foot. I had a decent run this morning and I managed through the treadmill experience despite the combination of boredom and terror that comes with that. I may treat myself to the elliptical tomorrow depending on the weather.

5 degree weather is cramping my style

It's extraordinarily cold today. The display in my car showed 27 degrees in my garage and by the time I reached the train station, seven minutes later, it said 5. I usually rest on Mondays so I didn't have to suffer through a treadmill session this morning. My threshold for morning runs is about 14 degrees. After that it's the treadmill or elliptical machine.

It's been a tough winter for running. We've already had more snow in December and January than what we usually average for the entire season. I like snow but it reduces my choices for running venues. I won't be running any wooded trails for a while and I'm sure that the Bethpage bike trail is snowy and icy right now. My choices are either indoor running or around my local neighborhood. Make that a subset of local streets because the snow and ice has limited access to some key cross points. More snow is coming this week which will exacerbate the problem but at least the temperatures should rise. It looks like I may be doing much of my race training indoors unless we see a big thaw soon.

A difficult run on a cold winter's day

H/H Trail Lizards -- great on snow - not so much on the road

Today's run (street): 3.8 miles

My streak of energizing, feel-good runs was broken today with a 3.8 mile run that felt much longer. I was surprised to hit the wall so hard on this relatively short run. Learning from yesterday's experience, I wore my Helly Hansen Trail Lizards because there is still much snow and ice (and ice covered snow) on the roads. Things started out well, I moved right along, hardly slowing down for the snowy-icy patches. The Helly's provided great grip and stability over these areas for the most part though there were some spots that I preferred to dodge rather than run straight though.

My first hint of trouble happened on my first turn into the westerly winds that made the 18 degree temperatures feel much colder. I really wished at that moment that I'd worn my balaclava. On top of the force of the wind, the touch of my glasses against my face grew increasingly uncomfortable. Once I turned another corner that problem fell away and I felt like the worst was over since my body was warmed up, making straight-on winds less of an issue from that point. That much was true and I progressed well but I started to get tired as I neared the 25 minute mark. It may have been the cold or the fact that the Helly's don't run very well on pavement but I began to experience signs of bonking.

My level of effort (using the Daily Mile 1-5 scale) moved quickly from two to three to almost four in a period of five minutes and I decided to re-point my route back towards my home. Despite this difficulty I forced myself to maintain a reasonably fast cadence and came in with a respectable mid-9 overall pace. The runs today and yesterday were not typical street runs as the snow, ice and slush made them more trail-like. Perhaps it was the harder work coming from running the Trail Lizards on the road instead of the trail where they shine. It doesn't matter why, only that today's run was tough and hopefully the next one will be better. Even as I slogged through the difficult last mile I thought to myself how much I loved this crazy sport.

Garmin foot pod calibration - one of life's mysteries

Today's run (street): 5 miles

The action of calibrating my Garmin's foot pod is hit or miss. The best way to do it is when you run an exact distance and it calibrates automatically. Another method is to adjust the foot pod based upon a known factor, such as the percentage between what was recorded and what you actually ran. The third way is the worst way and of course it's the one I usually follow because it's also the the easiest. In this case, when I'm consistently over or under recording my distance (compared with Gmaps) I manually compensate by arbitrarily increasing the the index until I get close. Sometimes this works great and the foot pod will report accurately for many runs. Since I often switch the foot pod between pairs of shoes it's usually off by some factor anyway and that's why I Gmap my runs.

Easier said than done

This morning I adjusted the foot pod thinking that a .05% decrease would compensate for over recording would get me to the 1/100ths of a mile accuracy that I often observe. When I went out this morning on the freshly plowed streets I was moving well. Except for on the spots that were still covered with packed snow my pace was fast and my stride was good. I often follow the same exact route for the first mile to gauge whether the Garmin is ahead or behind my real distance. I must have been confused today because I came through the first mile thinking that the foot pod was under recording, when in fact it was probably off by 3% the other way. I'm still fuzzy about when it chirped and where I was when that happened but when I finished my run the recorded distance was .23 miles greater than what I mapped using Gmaps.

I find it hard to believe my calibration was that far off and I have a different theory. Much of the roads were covered with a combination of slush and snow and my form differed greatly when I ran on those sections versus the open pavement.  It's possible that this difference in stride, cadence and lift may have thrown off the foot pod. I won't ever really know but I'm planning to reset the foot pod to 100% index value and start again. If I thought that a GPS watch would be more accurate I'd probably buy the Garmin 210. Most of the time I'd be better off just running with a stop watch and calculating pace later, after I'd Gmapped the route. The only problem with that is when I run the trails or on the treadmill and the foot pod also provides excellent data that I value, including split times and cadence. I guess I'll just keep calibrating and hoping for the best.

A tropical change of pace

Sunset over the Gulf coast

Yesterday's run (southern FL): 4.1 miles

I've been at a conference for most of this week and due to travel and meetings I didn't get a chance to run on Wednesday. Thursday morning I met up with my friend CK for a run before the conference activities started. I was giving a talk in the afternoon and knew that this would probably be the only time that I could fit a workout into this trip. CK and I headed out from the hotel tracking south along a straight, palm tree-lined road. It was fairly early when we left and there was little traffic. The sun seems to rise later in southern Florida and the light at 7:00 AM was still at low intensity. Florida gets hot, even in January, but it was a cool 58 degrees with very little humidity when we started.

Compared with my recent paces, CK and I moved along at a moderately fast clip and I was pleased that I could hold up my end of the conversation even as we pushed against my comfort zone. We continued south for two miles then turned around for the return. On the way back we threw in some minute long tempos and before we knew it the resort was back in our sight. We ended up averaging 8:55 per mile for the run and it really seemed effortless.

The conference went well  and despite the 5" of snow that fell in New York this morning I was able to return home pretty much on schedule. I've only run about 6 miles this week so I'm hoping to make up for that this weekend. With all this fresh snow it looks like I'll be once again confined to neighborhood running on Saturday.  My next race is coming up in few weeks so I'll need to focus on training for that. Running with a high performer like CK showed me that I'm in good shape but I still need to step it up to be as competitive as I'd like to be. I want to achieve a new PR for 4 miles and this race takes place at the same location as my 10K PR so prospects are good. Performance will be my focus for now.