Wednesday, December 7, 2011

1st snowy run, challenges in cold, and moving toward 3 steps per second

Today was my first run EVER on a snowy day.  It was GREAT!  I mean, there's not snow on the roads or anything...but it was still fun to see snow all around me as I ran.  I'm a fan.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised at loving it - as a kid, I really enjoyed winter horseback riding.  So maybe there is hope that I'll run outside all the way through the winter, as I want to do.


I'm running without glasses still, as I haven't yet purchased the terrorist mask.  My current ensemble is keeping me warm enough.  I am dealing with the icky wetness of my facewarmer as my hot breath interacts with the frozen morning air.  When I get almost to my building door, I peel off the facewarmer and always immediately realize that the back of my hair is soaking wet with quickly-freezing sweat, and my collar is drenched in that sweat - it gets cold and gross almost the instant I take off the facewarmer.  Also, my eyes water from the cold as I run, so I'm trying to get little icicles on my lashes all along the way (I remember them well from winter riding).  If this whole paragraph sounds like a complaint, it's mostly not.  The only part I detest is the wetness over my mouth area.  The rest is just stuff I notice and somehow find interesting (WHY do you read me?!) and it just makes me feel kinda like a badass, which is fun for me.  LOL 


My intervals this week look like:


5-ish minutes of warmup walking
1 minute slower jog
14 minutes faster run
1 minute slower jog
14 minutes faster run
5-ish minutes of cooldown walking


And it hasn't even been hard, making that transition.  In fact, on Monday I went too far before turning around, so I had a couple of extra minutes at the end.  So before the end of the running part, I did one full minute of running at 3 steps per second.  And this morning I did that again, too.  3 steps per second runs me out of breath pretty quickly.  I'll definitely be advancing in fitness when I start adding THAT pace as more than just 1 odd minute in 30. 


Final note:  I am STILL shocked at how much I am enjoying myself running.  This is not at all what I ever in life understood about myself.  What presumptions are YOU making about yourself that could be undone, causing joy, if you let God show you?


Just asking.  :-)

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