And as winter approaches I think I’m ready to try again. The thing is I love being outside. And when I’m running, that’s one time I can stand the cold. It’s funny. I hear people talk about moving their running inside to the track or (shudder) the treadmill at the very time that I’m starting to get keen.
I love how quiet it is issue in the winter. I love the sound of crunching snow. Winter is my favorite running season.
I’m up early three mornings a week for CrossFit and I think I’d like to try running on the other two weekdays. There’s a nice 4 km loop around my house. When I did it before I did the loop once alone and then again with my running friends, the dogs, at a more uneven pace with lots of stops for sniffing, with squirrel sprints thrown in for good measure. I’ve written about my dogs before. See Dogs are natural intuitive exercisers and Injuries, exercise, and thank God for dogs. Dogs are great company to run with because they are so happy to be out there and they love running. For 25 dogs with runners’ high, see here.
I don’t expect that I’ll be able to extend my range much beyond 10 km given my history of running injuries but 10 km would be enough to do most of the duathlons I’m interested in, I think. I’ve also enjoyed some of the adventure races but they have obstacle breaks built in and so again I think 10 km is probably fine. I’ll be curious to see whether I can make any speed gains this time round. I’m certainly a lot stronger now. In the past my 5 km times got pretty good, down to 25 minutes after regular speed training on the track, but my 10 km seemed stuck. It didn’t matter that I got faster at 5 km my fastest 10 km is slow, 1:08. Distance isn’t my friend!
I’ll report back and let you know how I’m doing…and any advice? Throw it my way.
