Posts Tagged ‘weather’

This is a complete coincidence that I’m writing this on Groundhog Day …

While most everyone is loving these warmer temperatures this winter, I hate it. Just as flowers aren’t supposed to bloom in January, the number of runs in short-sleeve shirts in January aren’t supposed to outnumber the number of runs in a long-sleeve shirt.

A familiar scene from winter 2010. Definitely not this year.

Little did some of you know, but years ago – like when I was 10 years old – I wanted to be a meteorologist. I was so obsessed about the weather that one of my mom’s friends had a hook-up with WDBJ7, one of our local news stations, who got me a private tour of the weather studio. An afternoon with just me and their meteorologists.

Over the years my career goals went from weather to wanting to be an accountant to eventually leading to the low-paying profession of journalism for the first 7 years of my career.

Through it all, though, my love for the weather never died. Watching Weather on the 8’s on the Weather Channel was something I did ALL THE TIME.

These days I get obsessed with comparing forecasts between the Weather Channel, Accuweather, WxRisk, and my local weather stations, among other sources. That obsession is much worse in the winter because I love snow.

Problem is, this winter has been one of the lamest winters of all time. At least it feels that way after two decent snowy winters in a row. So … why is it so warm?

Many news stories on TV and online do a poor job of explaining this. They tie it to climate change and global warming, which only spreads unnecessary fear and unnecessary office talk.

Simply put, we have been in a bizarre weather pattern for a few years – just as the jet stream had an unusual dip south a couple of winters ago, thus bringing crazy snow storms and cold weather extremely south, this winter the jet stream is extremely north, thus allowing warm air and even Gulf moisture into the southeast.

The lack of snow everywhere contributes to some of the warmer air – when snow covers the ground, the sunlight is reflected back into space keeping temperatures lower; no snow means the ground is absorbing the suns rays, making things warmer.

There are definitely other factors to this — La Niña is one, but even the best meteorologists suggest that this year’s La Niña isn’t a “normal” one. I won’t even begin to try and explain that.

While some people may ask what happened to winter, keep in mind that way back in October the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted a drier and warmer winter than usual.

If you’re really wondering where winter went this year, look at Alaska with its record-breaking cold and record snows. Maybe, just maybe, some of us snow lovers will get some of that this month.

No, I did not fall off the edge of a cliff. I’m alive and doing very well. I just happened to get caught up in the madness of life, got some extra sleep, and then traveled to Ohio to visit the in-laws and go to a wedding. The few days off the computer (besides my phone a few times) has been nice.

No hills in sight around this northeast Ohio greenway.

Fortunately I’ve had time to run twice on this trip too — on a nice, quiet paved trail that pretty much goes through the middle of nothing. While it can easily become boring, my two runs on this trip — 4 and 6 miles, respectively — have been great. It’s just been me and a few of my favorite tunes, as well as some cool weather in the mid-30s.

(Complete side note here — I thought this was northeast Ohio where everyone brags about how they can handle cold weather? I saw a lot of people bundled up on this morning’s run while my southern self was in shorts and a thin long-sleeve shirt with no issues.)

Anyway … I took advantage of the flatness to get in my first goal-oriented run since Baltimore — I did a progressive run on Friday with splits of 9:11, 8:54, 8:17, and 7:57. Today I started a bit slow, but finished my 6-miler under a 9-minute pace. These two runs are the first ones in three weeks in which I felt completely normal.

It’s left me with thoughts all over the place abut what I want to do this spring. I know I’ve mentioned going for a PR in the Shamrock Half Marathon in March, but I’m also thinking about upgrading to the full marathon. I’ve had other thoughts of still doing Shamrock Half and then maybe doing the Charlottesville Marathon in April.

Other races and other goals have been on my mind quite a bit too, but I’m still not ready to commit to anything yet. In a way, I want whatever is next beyond my upcoming 5k series to feel spontaneous, kind of like when I signed up for Baltimore. Maybe something even more random that I haven’t even thought of will pop up in the next few weeks.

For now, though, it’s all about those 5k races and the last 97 miles or so until I hit 1,000 miles for 2011.

This almost didn’t happen.

Friday morning I had a slight sore throat that led to feeling kind of bad that evening. I felt like I was shaking it off, but as I had trouble sleeping, I had brief thoughts of a DNS.

Feeling good 13.1 miles in

Fast forward 13.1 miles to the middle of the Baltimore Marathon. There’s no reason not to — I fought of those stupid thoughts, started the first few miles slow (my first official split at mile 5.8 was 49:10, an 8:29 pace) and at the half way point I had picked up the pace and was at just under 1:50, an 8:23 pace. I was in the zone like never before.

But that feeling of a cold was still there and 20-30 mph winds were in the forecast. I had to push it before the weather elements hit and before my body would have no more of that running a marathon stuff.

Well, around mile 18 the wind hit. And a few miles later I suddenly needed water like never before. I wasn’t thirsty, but a bit of a stopped up nose and slightly sore throat was making my mouth so dry. I’m sure the wind didn’t help.

I couldn’t have prepared for what I was feeling. I was able to push mile 19 out in 8:35 as I tried to fight those thoughts; slowed down to just over 10 minutes for mile 20 and then managed to do mile 21 in 9:18.

I kept doing math in my head of what I could do, but I just wasn’t feeling good. My legs were actually doing great — there was no “wall hitting” feeling — but everything else was getting to me.

So mentally and physically, I axed my “A” goal of 3:45. I knew that if I slowed down, walked a bit every few minutes and grabbed two cups of water plus Gatorade that I would easily hit my “B” goal – a sub 4-hour marathon.

Getting ready to head through Camden Yards for a very cool finish.

I spent the last few miles soaking in the sights and sounds (tons of cowbells in Baltimore), backing off quite a bit (miles 23 and 24 were a few seconds over 10 minutes) and doing what I could to avoid further sickness.

Then it hit.

I had the absolute worse cramp ever in my left leg. I nearly fell down. I stopped, stretched, rubbed it out, and … nothing. I could not move. While I freaked out a bit, I had a little more than 15 minutes to spare with a mile to go to get to my “B” goal.

I took a deep breath, repeated those steps and took the shortest strides of my life for the final mile. I wasn’t going to get to the huge crowd through Camden Yards and walk.

My time? 3:56:17. 762nd out of 3,207; 582nd out of 2,015 men; 104th out of 336 in my age group.

This was far and away the best running experience since finishing my first marathon 4 years ago. There’s a lot more from this race and weekend that I’ll eventually blog about, but for now this is a moment I want to soak in and celebrate.

I know for the second straight month that I’m getting away from my goal of “11 things” posts, but with the Baltimore Marathon just days away, I made a promise to myself the other day to do some reflecting.

There’s no better way to reflect than an 11 things posts. Here are 11 things that have happened during training, lessons I’ve learned, things I never posted and other random thoughts.

1. I listened to this song a lot on my long runs in the last month or so. To hear it when the sun is coming up often gave me a sense of peace and helped me find strength when I needed it most.

2. I’m pretty sure I experienced the biggest variety of weather this time around. With a majority of mid-week runs in the middle of the day, I had the hottest conditions I’ve ever run in, with temperatures often near 90 or slightly above. These past two weekends, it’s been half that at the start.

3. In a 16-week span, I ran 456.7 miles, which is 51.9 more miles than the 16 weeks prior to the Richmond Marathon last year.

4. I’ve been much more diligent about recovery runs this year with running a couple of miles or so the day after big runs.

5. I have walked 117 miles since the beginning of July 1. That’s just walking miles logged on Daily Mile. That’s miles I’ve walked at work and family walks on Sunday; actual mileage is probably a bit higher. I’ve also hiked a few times too. I wrote a long time ago about walking more and how it would impact training, and I have nothing but great things to say about it. All this walking silently pushed me over 1,000 exercise miles for the year recently.

6. As a weather junkie (see No. 2 above), I’ve been looking at long-range forecasts for this weekend as soon as they were available. Accuweather’s 15-day forecast and the Weather Channel’s 10-day forecast have surprisingly stayed consistent. Saturday is looking good right now, but I know things can change. After seeing hot weather for Chicago return this past weekend, I’m mentally preparing myself for the worse.

7. I’ve never once doubted setting my 3:45 goal. In fact, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in training. It made my training much more intentional and focused with every run. Whether all this pays off Saturday is obviously to be determined, but I like heading to the start line in this mind frame.

8. I took my first ice bath after one of my long runs. I can’t bring myself to ice bath No. 2.

9. I stretch after all my runs — sometimes it’s just a few minutes for short runs, often it’s about 10 minutes after a long run. I rarely stretched before.

10. I ran 148 miles on Saturdays. That’s more than Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays combined. The lowest day was Monday, with 37.4 miles. In August, I stopped running on Mondays (besides 8.3 on Labor Day) when that became a regular core day.

11. I talk a lot about having fun and encourage people to always have fun on a race or run. In looking back at the past 16 weeks, I can honestly say I had fun. From the sunrises, to seeing families of deer, to laughing with co-workers on lunch runs, this has been an awesome experience.

There are a variety of things on my mind, so I won’t waste time getting to them:

• As if I didn’t know that the Baltimore Marathon was a month away, an email with a giant counter reminded me, and a Facebook post unveiled the official marathon logo. The finishers medal was also released today. So yeah, there’s a month to go.
• I got a nice reminder this week that my body is in full control. I was a bit wiped out Monday and skipped what had become a regular core day with our personal trainer at work. Then after a good run Tuesday, my throat started hurting a bit. Then Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I didn’t feel that great. I spent yesterday fighting it with allergy medicine, Naked Juice, Arizona tea, water and a dose of Nyquil knock-off. I got a solid night’s sleep and woke up feeling 10 times better today.
• That said, I’m a bit off my mileage this week. I probably would have pulled a double yesterday for more mileage, and I thought about it briefly tonight, but besides an extra half mile with Duke, I’m opting for an earlier bedtime for more rest. I think at this point rest is more important than forcing miles. It’s the first week of my training that I have felt behind, but I’m not going to force myself to make anything up.
• If you’re not a Garmin Connect fan, check it out. There is now a courses creation feature that follows the road.
• This weekend marks what is now becoming known in the Shamrock Marathon events at Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day weekend. For me, it’s also known as 6-more-months-to-go-until-I-set-my-half-marathon-PR weekend, or 4-weeks-to-go-until-the-Baltimore-Marathon weekend. Both are equally exciting.
• Lastly, tonight summer gets a big boot in the butt as temperatures drop to about 50; tomorrow’s high might hit 60. It will be the coolest day since April. While I know there are plenty of warm days left, I think the oppressive heat is finally over. I’ll drink to that.

I think a week ago when I knew I was cutting my miles back this week, I put myself in a frame of mind of just getting through the week. Then when I started feeling bad it seemed like everything got worse.

That led to almost turning my alarm off this morning and sleeping in. I briefly thought I could just sleep for another hour or so and then get in my 10 miles tonight. One bad thought leading to another.

When I finally got out of bed and started my run with my dog, I felt miserable. The humidity was even worse than the past few weeks after rain last night. I was having a hard time breathing even though I was intentionally going slower than usual.

After dropping my dog off at home after a few miles and then running a few more, I snapped out of it. After my post the other day about bouncing back after a bad run, I realized I wasn’t practicing my own advice.

While I was still struggling a bit with the humidity, the second half of today’s 10 miles was definitely better — both physically and mentally. It wasn’t that big of a negative split, but the second 5 miles were about 30 seconds faster than the first 5. I also played this well with the first mile being the slowest (9:45) and the final mile being the fastest (9:11).

I started thinking at the end of my run how I could do with humidity about half of what it was today, and I really think I can drop these times significantly both on a normal long run and in a race condition. With my 3:45 goal time for Baltimore, I like where I am pace wise on these long runs, especially with this weather. Today’s long run was a 9:26 pace, only 50 seconds off my marathon goal pace.

Today's elevation. Hilly as always.

It’s rare that I say I’m glad a week is over, but I’m really glad to move on to next week. I’m looking forward to higher mileage, slightly cooler conditions and the Lynchburg Half Marathon on Saturday. As I wrote the other day, it’s time to get the hell over it and move on. This time I mean it.

From a quick search on my blog and from my memory of what I’ve written, I’m pretty sure that I have never talked about hitting a wall on a run. I think it comes from keeping my long runs slower and, fortunately, not having many wall-hitting moments in a race.

Today, though, I had one of the worst moments of hitting on a wall on a run that I can remember. I had 14 miles planned, but after the sun came up, I felt like I had the life sucked out of me. At around 11 miles I was feeling weak; after stopping and drinking some water, I tried to keep going.

At mile 12, I could not go any more. It wasn’t like I went from a run to a walk — I literally had to stop and catch my breath for a minute before I could go. I walked about a half mile and then tried to run a little more, but less than a quarter mile later the run was over. Getting to 14 miles safely, and to 30 miles for the week, just wasn’t meant to be.

It was so humid today — at 5:30 a.m. the humidity was 84 percent. It was the same 2 hours later. The temperatures weren’t too bad — in the low 70s — but the sun got a little rough when it came up. My clothes were as wet today as when I ran in the rain Tuesday. I could feel sweat dripping on my legs from my shorts at the end of the run. I’m pretty sure that’s never happened before.

Despite feeling defeated for a little while, I am OK with all this. I hit some big hills throughout today’s run (700-plus feet of elevation gain) that I guess I wasn’t fully ready for on a longer run. The effort on these hills will do more for me than a longer flat run will anyway, so I have to keep that in mind.

And why would I beat myself for running 12-plus miles in miserable conditions? On top of that, I had some great runs this week in the hottest conditions I’ve ever experienced, plus a run in the rain. I am not about to complain as this week will make a big difference in how I feel in cooler conditions later in training. (See yesterday’s post about training in these conditions …)

One lesson I have learned this week is that I either need to get used to running with my Camelbak again or buy a small handheld. After running in the heat this week and the humidity today, I need to do something. I did a good job today of staging water stops and fuel — five water stops, two gels and a Clif bar — but a more constant supply of water may have made a difference with getting an extra couple of miles.

Not to be lost in today’s run is the fact that I passed 90 miles for the month and 500 miles for the year. As I adjust my training schedule for next week, I’ll get to 120 miles in July if things go as planned. My focus, though, will be to make sure these continue to be solid, focused and purposeful miles … and no more wall-hitting.

Image: Lavoview / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’m worn out talking and hearing about the weather this week. Yes, it’s hot; in fact, it’s quite brutal with some all-time highs being set. If you’re running in the heat, be safe; hydrate; take walking breaks if you have to; and by all means if you want to, hit the treadmill.

That being said, my stance on the weather remains, “If you don’t train in it …,” but be smart about it. Remember, though, that you have to prepare for any condition on race day. Just like running in the cold and snow in the winter time, or running in pouring rain, I think heat runs are important when done safely.

It can be quite brutal for fall races too, so don’t just give in to the heat so quickly. Even if it’s still 80 degrees at 5 a.m., run then out of the direct sunlight. A few months from now you’ll be glad you did. Every run doesn’t have to be inside, but if the weather freaks you out now and you have abnormally warm weather for a fall race, your body will have no idea how to react.

* * *

I’m pretty excited about getting to my 30th mile this week and the 500th mile of the year as training for the Baltimore Marathon kicks into high gear, but I have to wait. With my wife headed out of town today and the weather hotter than Dante’s 9th Circle of Hell (as I have already discussed), running my long run early in the morning has to wait until Sunday. And yes, it will likely be a 5 a.m. wake-up call to get it done.

It’s teaching me some patience with running that I didn’t know I was actually losing. I’m very flexible with my training, but waiting until the last day of my running week for the long run makes me antsy and causes blog posts like this.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This weekend I’m running in the Percival’s Island 5 Miler in Lynchburg for the fourth time since 2006. This year the weather looks great with the forecast to be in the low 60s the night before with relatively low humidity.

Last year turned into a big humid mess; the weather the first half of this week has been the worst of the year with heat indexes in the low 100s.

Why all this weather talk? Well, like last week’s 5k PR, a change in the weather is all I need to change my mind frame. I’m also realizing that each time I run in the heat that battling the elements is just as much a mental fight as it is physical. I’m ready to move forward with setting a very specific goal for this race.

Based on recent runs on hills, the way I felt on this course last year, and some technological help, I’m setting a goal of 36:54. That’s 5 seconds faster — 1 second per mile — than what I did four years ago. I think it’s a realistic goal to set my mind to so I don’t just go out and “see what happens.” I’ve done that enough over the years, but I think it’s time that I have a very specific goal for a race like this.

Image: Chaiwat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net