The Work's Not Gonna Do Itself

Brrrrr! I have been out of the state visiting with some family for the last few days, which was really nice after the holidays. It required a bit of extra motivation to get myself out of the warm house and company, especially when the temperatures outside were negative! I had forgotten what it was like to step out the door and instantly have your nose hairs freeze; that's how you know it is cold. I just went for a few jogs down a local bike path. The pictures that I have posted show the clear sections, but a lot of it was covered in a sheet of ice. In spite of that, I was able to get some speedier workouts in than normal. It is amazing how much faster I can go without my dogs stopping and distracting me every few minutes. Still, it will be nice to get home to them tonight and be back on the trail tomorrow morning. :)

Christmas Run!

I made the last-minute decision this week to do the YMCA Christmas Run. Last night, it dumped snow in Boise, so it made for some interesting conditions on the roads today. (And here, "dumped snow" means that we got a few inches.) Because snow that sticks is such an infrequent occurrence, the city does not really have any resources for plowing, and the sanding of the roads is VERY light- not enough to cut the snow. You know that feeling when you are running on the beach and the sand slips a little from under your feet every time you take a step? Now imagine that happening when it is twenty degrees and you are going uphill. Oof.

Fortunately, I am not one to get grumpy about these things. I was hoping to do a 8-8:15 pace and wound up finishing the six mile course in 51:23- an 8:34 pace. I was stoked to have been so close to my target considering the way the roads were. I am not normally one to set time goals, but as I am trying to get myself a bit faster over the next year, I am trying to push myself a bit more for speed. Today's run was a good experiment and helped me to see what kind of speed work I need to be doing.

I met up with some folks that were with the Girls on the Run group. We were pretty sparse today; I think that the snow kept more people home than usual! As always, it's great to see the girls out doing runs when the season is over.

I saw a bunch of other local running friends, mostly in passing before and after the race. I am always amazed by how many people I recognize, even in these 2000+ people events.

Views from the Top of the World (sorta)

Little photo shoot with the pups.

Boise has had a bit of a nasty inversion going on this week. I headed out of town a bit for my run (hill climb) today to get a little clean air! Cervidae Peak is just between Boise and Idaho City. It is a short climb- about two miles- but has about 1800 feet of elevation gain. My quads were feeling it today, which was surprising. That means that more hills must be on the menu for the next few months! The temperature changed pretty drastically with the elevation change, as you can see from the frost in the photos. With the exception of the one with the dogs and me, the photos were taken from the top-down. The pictures taken from the top are pretty clear, but farther down the hill, we ducked into the inversion and ran through beautiful, ice-covered grass and sage. Then, as you can see in the last picture, everything was clear again at the bottom.

Above the clouds.

There is that fog- facing towards Boise.

You can see the sides of the hill that spend most of the day in the shade.

Somewhere in the mid-point of our run..

Jake eatin' some snow.

Above Spring Shores Marina 

Anniversary

Yesterday was the four-year anniversary of my first marathon. I cannot believe how much has happened between then and now. Truthfully, it was overly ambitious for me to sign up and run that race. I had not trained in a fashion that was nearly adequate to run 26 miles, but fortunately twenty year old bodies are springy and malleable and withstand much more regular abuse than long-distance running. 

The marathon had always intrigued and intimidated me, in particular because training would usually require running in either extreme heat and humidity or extreme cold in Massachusetts. During that time in 2009, I was living in Honolulu for my year of exchange, and though I had not been running far, I had been running consistently for many, many months. I paid my entry fee, and race day came quickly. I don’t think that I had run farther than sixteen miles, and even runs of comparable distance had been rare. Ahhhh, well!

I showed up at the start of the race with another girl who was on exchange, and we came across a huge group of people doing a strange organized warm-up. We joined in, thinking that it was being put on by race management, and it was about fifteen minutes before we realized that we were actually in the middle of a large Japanese tour group that had come to run the marathon. (Japan Airlines sponsors the race, and there is a huge percentage of the participants that come in from Japan.)

The marathon started with fireworks, traveled through a Christmas-decorated Chinatown with a huge Hawaiian Santa Claus, and continued alongside the ocean. We passed Diamond Head and even continued even farther west before looping back and finishing next to the zoo and Waikiki Beach in Kapiolani Park. It was beautiful all the way, and it was a great first. I was so happy to have checked “run a marathon” off my list.

Four years later and several hundred (thousand?) miles behind me, here I am, still looking down the long road (trail?) ahead.

Winter Running

The key to winter running is doing it. Did you have to read that sentence twice to see if you had missed something? You didn't- that's the key. Do it. Everyone will have their own tricks and their gear needs to cover ears and finger and traction for the sneakers, etc. etc. But the biggest part is truly just getting yourself out the door. This could be said for running at any time of the year, but when the temps are sub-40, sub-32, sub-0 (whatever is your personal cold point), that extra rest day sound even more appealing.

No one is immune, even those of us who run daily may need to engage in some self-talk to get out from under those covers when it comes to running in the wintertime.

The view from my window. 

This morning, I woke up to a beautiful layer of snow out my window and a temperature of sixteen degrees. I made myself some breakfast, drank some tea, and sat in my armchair by the window surveying the foothills. I did NOT want to think about layering up and getting out there, but the longer I looked out at the white hill in the haze of still-falling snow, the more I knew that I would be kicking myself later if the snow melted before I put some miles into it.

Jacob looooves the snow!

Then I waited a little longer. Finally, I started pulling on my running tights and preparing to leave. That gets the dogs excited, so there was really no turning back. Sneakers on, buff on, gloves on. Out the door. Brrrrrrrrr, that winter air is COLD!

Then, magically, it all becomes better. Minutes start passing, and you don't need the buff over your face any longer. Your body warms so quickly, and you can't remember why you ever thought there was a better place to be than out running on this beautiful winter day..

The beautiful Harrison Hollows trails.

All of us

(I wrote this on December 7th, and it is just being posted today since I have internet access. I should include a disclaimer that I have been sick all week and have not run since then. Ahhhhh, well.)