Tag: fall running

Fall Catch-Up

Since running my last race, I’ve been trying to be good and set myself up for a good finish to the running season, but I always screw it up. After taking it easy for a week after the ultra at Broken Anvil, I jumped right back into the fire and did too much, too soon. My plan was to keep adding miles to my annual total to see if I could get close to 2,000 miles for the year, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. The quadracep/thigh muscles just above my knee were telling me that I still haven’t recovered enough to keep adding miles on my sore legs, no matter how slowly I was doing it. And to make sure that I was going to sabotage myself, I went ahead and signed up for the fall 25K trail race that I like to do in November. That may now be in jeopardy, but it is still a couple of weeks away, and with some rest I may be able to hobble through it.

The past couple of weeks have been better, and I was up in northern Wisconsin to hang out around our lake home and take care of some fall things that needed to be done. There are some great trail running locations up there, and I couldn’t resist running on them. Although we missed the peak fall foliage, there were still some great views along the trail. Kari and I even took a trip to Hurley, near the Michigan U.P., to see a small waterfall that I was prepared to be underwhelmed by. It was actually really neat. I had forgotten how much I enjoy running trails that are dirt and grass, with fun stuff to navigate through and around.

I spent the week doing e-bike rides with Kari and keeping the runs at a 5-mile max. distance, and I was beginning to feel better. Upon returning home, I added a run/walked 10-miler with no issues. When I did it again two days later, my left hamstring sent me a strong signal at 7.5 miles that it won’t tolerate my shenanigans anymore. I tried to jog super slowly again today, but it clearly isn’t going to let me do that. I’m going to have to rest my leg for a while and substitute cycling and walking for running. I can walk just fine, which seems odd.

Oh well, at 63 years old, I can expect a few setbacks now and again, and live to run another day. Plenty of time left in the year to keep adding to the annual mileage.

Changing Seasons

Fall is in full swing here in the Midwest, and I’m still chugging along. I have one more race on the calendar for the year, a 25K trail race in November, so I am trying to build a little speed while hoping I don’t reaggravate some dumb running injury. I’m also hoping to run over 1000 miles this year, something I didn’t do last year, only hitting 800. I’m confident I can get that done.

I had two decent runs this week, a 10.5 miler on Wednesday and a 12 miler on Friday. I was happy with both efforts, running them straight, without taking any walk breaks. Even though I am still running the A/C at home due to some lingering warm fall temperatures, both Wednesday and Friday were cooler than what I was used to. In typical “me” fashion, both days resulted in my overdressing for the run. You would think that in my thirty-plus years of running, I would know how to dress myself for running success. Nope. On Wednesday, I wore shorts and doubled up on top with a long-sleeve shirt covering a short-sleeve one because I was worried about being too cool. By mile two, I had warmed up nicely and was sweating heavily and cursing myself for not dressing smarter. Then I went and did the same exact thing on Friday.

It’s been a struggle for me year in and year out. Every year, I promise myself that this will be the year that I keep some sort of journal on what to wear for the weather to be comfortable. I neglect it every year.

Wearing layers is the smart thing to do, and that is something I don’t fail at. If you get too hot, you can take off a layer and put it back on if necessary. But it’s not just about knowing how many layers to wear; it’s also about wearing the right things, as well. When I started running in the late 1980s, there wasn’t any sort of industry-wide clothing for runners. We had cotton shirts, shorts, socks, and you wore what was comfortable. If you signed up for a race, you were given a cotton shirt. I wore them like badges of honor, even though they held on to sweat and became miserable. According to Google, Nike didn’t debut its Dri-Fit clothing until 1991, and it took a while to convert us running neanderthals. When tech fabric (generally made of polyester) became widely available, it made a huge difference in running for me.

This is a much younger me running the 1999(?) Jenny Spangler Trustmark Marathon in Lake County, IL. The shorts and top are some of my early tech running gear. I still have the shirt. I wore it on Friday. The hat was a cotton Univ. of Kentucky hat. Apparently, I hadn’t made the switch to visors yet.

It’s interesting to see how others dress when the temps get cooler. I saw a woman running the other day in shorts, a short-sleeve shirt, and an ear covering headband, clearly worn to keep her ears from getting cold. In the fall, when the temperature hits the 50s, people start wearing pants and sweatshirts. In contrast, on the same type of weather day in spring, they won’t be wearing anything like that, happily enjoying their runs in shorts and t-shirts. I guess going from cold to warm is an easier transition than warm to cold. The picture of me above was what I wore on a spring day. Looks like I was ready for the warming temps.

Well, since I don’t have a handy-dandy reference log to tell me how to dress perfectly for the changing seasons, I guess I will just keep changing clothes with the seasons.