Day 101: Too Cold?

It’s been a bad week for running. I had an early meeting yesterday morning so I had to leave the house at 6:30am. Tomorrow morning is Friday which is now designated as the day I get together with some other dudes from my church at 6am to learn/talk about biblical masculinity. With yesterday and tomorrow not working, you’d think I’d be all about running this morning, right? Well, I was…

I got up, did my normal study thing for about an hour, got all dressed, stretched out, put my shoes on and went outside to be greeted by a temperature for 44° and a light wind - a bit snappy is what we call that. I stood at the end of the drive way for about a minute - there in my shorts, fleece, and stocking cap - and then decided to head back in. Yep. I wimped out.

So now I’m sitting here trying to figure out what running is going to look like for me this winter.

If you run outside, what do you do in the winter? Do you bundle up? Hit a treadmill? How cold is too cold for you?

Day 99: Day 98

60°/88%/Cloudy - 3.11 @ 34:33

I didn’t get this posted yesterday, but since I’m not running this morning, I’ll post it now.  I weighed in at 209.4lbs yesterday so I’m still losing.  I’m not sure how much of that has been exercise and how much has been stress.  It’s been a busy week or so.

Yesterday morning was a really good run and it really helped me to clear my mind and pray through some things that I’ve been working through.

Day 94: A Running Philosophy

62°/87%/Clear - 3.11 @ 34:39

This post isn’t about my philosophy of running. It’s about thinking philosophically while running. My new route takes me around about 3 miles of the neighborhood. At multiple points in my route, I sometimes feel like quitting; at other times, I feel like taking a shortcut. So far, I’ve overcome these temptations and have pressed on. But it does make me stop and think.

This morning I was reflecting on this and how it relates to my life. Sometimes I get myself involved in things and I feel like quitting - especially when they get hard. In this mode, I’m typically flooded with an array of excuses. My high school football coach used to say, “Excuses are like a pair of dirty underwear. Everyone has a pair.”  At other times in life I feel like taking a shortcut.  Taking the easy way out, not putting forth a full effort, skimping on something, etc.

One thing that running is teaching me is that quitting or taking a shortcut is not the best solution.  Life is long.  Sometimes it feels like it’s going to be really long.  Sometimes that encourages me and sometimes that overwhelms me.  Running is teaching me to persevere, to endure.  When I feel like quitting or taking a shortcut, the best thing I can do sometimes is keep my head down and keep my feet moving.

This morning I was encouraged by the writer of Hebrews (12:1-2):

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Day 92: Running In The Dark

62°/89%/Hazy - 3.19 @ 35:58

The sun is coming up later these days which puts about the first half of my run in the dark - save for the street lights.  I’ve been enjoying that.  I’ve also been enjoying watching the sky in the east turn into a purple haze as the sun begins to light the sky before it breaks the horizon.

Day 91: Running From/To

59°/89%/Clear - 2.78 @ 30:59

It only took me five days to recover from my 5k.  Just kidding.  The end of last week and the weekend were busy so I didn’t get out (plus I was recovering some).  Didn’t quite go 3 miles this morning, but close.

I enjoyed Joe Thorn’s post on his Learning to Run Blog this morning titled Running To and From.  In it, he asks the questions “what are you running from?” and “what are you running to?”.  Good, helpful, reflective stuff to chew on while you’re working out.  Go give it a read.

Day 86: My First 5k

53°/94%/Cloudy - 3.19 @ 34:32

It was cooler today and I broke out my stocking cap for the first time and….I made my first 5k (3.1 miles = a 5k for those that aren’t down with the kilometers to miles conversion).  I’m pretty pumped about this accomplishment and am excited to try some new, more exciting routes now that I can actually cover some ground.  I ran a good portion of this up the same busy street as Day 84 and have found that I really enjoy running along side the hustle and bustle.

Day 84: Extending

(forgot to post on Day 84, so I’m posting it now - I must have hit ’save’ instead of ‘publish’)

58º/77%/Cloudy - 2.75 @ 28:46

So I’m learning that I can extend my distance a little more quickly than I originally thought I could. There seems to be a hump around 1.5 miles or so and once I pass that I can kind of slip into a rhythm. This morning I made it 2.75 miles and redirected my route to run about 1 mile up a busy street which was a nice change from the quiet side streets that I’m usually on.

I’ve also noticed the longer distance taking a toll on me in the evenings. I’m destroyed tonight. I sat down to read at 8pm and have been nodding off ever since. I guess my body is crying out for some extra sleep to compensate for the additional exertion.

Day 82 - Nearly 3 Miles

78º/78%/Cloudy - 2.92 @ 32:18

I ran nearly 3 miles today which was the farthest continuous run I’ve completed in over 10 years.  I set out to run my usual two miles and felt good near the end so I kept going.  I actually felt pretty good the whole time - although my legs were completely rubberized when I actually stopped.  I was shooting for 3 miles, but was sort of guessing at where that point was.  Using mapmyrun.com when I got home, the result was that I covered 2.92.

This was encouraging especially since this week has been so sporadic.  I’ll take tomorrow (Sunday) off and plan to make 2.5 miles my regular route next week and plan to hit 3.0 at least once as well (now that I know I can).

Day 79: Man’s Best Friend

53°/79%/Clear - 2.0 @ untimed

This morning was my first run in nearly a week and I felt a little tight but not bad.  I actually felt like I could have extended past 2 miles this morning without much trouble so next week I’ll probably start tying to extend to 2.5 miles.  It was cold this morning - too cold, really.  It got me thinking about how I’m going to have to change things up when it gets too cold to run outside this winter.  Which led to the question, how cold is too cold?  Right now I’m estimating somewhere below 40-45º is going to be too cold and I’ll have to run on the treadmill which I’m not really a big fan of.

I also got to say hello to my little friend, yellow-lab-demon-dog over at 1213 Windward Ridge Drive.  I haven’t mentioned him yet but I should have.  Yellow-lab-demon-dog barks ferociously at me every morning when I run by his house.  The first time it happened, it scared the crap out of me, but I’m used to it now.  To his credit, he does stay in his yard and though he always charges and barks loudly and annoyingly at me, he doesn’t chase me.  Maybe he just wants a friend…

Day 78: It’s Been a While

It’s been a while since I ran now.  My family and I have been in Denver since Friday morning and contrary to my original aspirations, I did not get out and run at all while we were there.  We’re back now and I hope to resume normal life tomorrow and get out for a two mile run.

With all of that said, I did receive a workout yesterday running around Denver International Airport.  We cut it a little too close getting to the airport.  We purposely left Meg’s sister’s place a little late to give our 9-month old as long of nap as possible.  So we got to the airport at about 2:40p for a 3:20p flight.  It was 3:05 by the time we checked in and got through security so we began running to our gate - me with the girls’ pink backpack proudly strapped to my back.

Denver’s airport is laid out such that you have to ride a train in between concourses, so we quickly glanced at our tickets and jumped on the train to Concourse B.  Upon getting to Concourse B, we ran all the way down to the end to gate B18 only to realize that the “B” on our ticket was not representing our gate, but rather our boarding group - uh oh.  I then quickly scooted over to one of the open gates and asked the kind lady which concourse Southwest Airlines was in (since we were now surrounded by United flights) to which she responded, Concourse A.

Here we go - busting it over to Concourse A - taking, of course the train again once we got done running to it.  Once we got to Concourse A, however, we discovered that the nice lady from United was, in fact, wrong, and that Concourse C was actually where the Southwest flights were.  It was now 3:25pm and our flight was surely gone.

So we ran/rode the train all the way back down to Concourse C (me and my sweet pink backpack ran ahead of Meg and the girls to try and make better time) and luckily found another flight to St. Louis through Kansas City that left at 4pm.  We proceeded to get the last three seats on the plane and made it back in to St. Louis at 8pm - home at about 9pm.

The kiddos were tired but did pretty well all things considered.

Take a look at the map of Denver International Airport to track my trek from the Terminal, to Concourse B, to Concourse A, to Concourse C.  I think it qualified as a workout.