WINTER OFFICIALLY ARRIVES IN WEST MICHIGAN

So now the outside running becomes more challenging. Sunday, Don and I went to the track again, for our official weekly run "together." Neither of us was too motivated to get out there early. It was cloudy and dreary and I figured it was colder than it was. But my main goal was to get it done before the snow started, even though it wasn't predicted to start until late afternoon or evening.

We got to the track about 11:45 and as luck would have it, we barely finished one lap and the wind picked up and the flakes started falling, slowly and lazily at first, with a full blown blizzard raging by the time we finished. We probably got 3-5 inches of the wet slushy variety, and dozens of schools are closed today. I remember when I was a kid only having 2 snow days in all my school years, and that's when we got 2 feet or more of snow at one time, yet they close for 3 or 4 inches now, without much hesitation it seems.

My plan this time was not to do fast/slow intervals but just a sustained effort for 3 or more miles. I have been wearing the heart rate monitor faithfully now and wanted to see when running only (not spinning/running) where my HR numbers would go.

I did pretty well the first 2 miles, with my heart rate only spiking when running into the wind on the east side of the track. With the winds coming directly out of the east, I knew it would be a little worse than usual storm. And by the end of the 2nd mile, the snow was falling heavily and the wind was raging! It was forceful enough that it was like running on a treadmill for a few seconds whenever it gusted, meaning you went no place fast.

By the time I was halfway through the last mile, my heart rate was spiked the entire time but went higher still whenever I ran into the wind. That was a strange observation to note. In fact, I went over my max HR and the monitor blinked and beeped at me so I knew it without even looking. I had set my max to be about 5 beats lower and I easily went 5 over. My time wasn't stellar by any means but again, the goal was only to try to keep a sustained effort for at least 3 miles with no walking. Since I haven't run a 5k since last summer, not once have I run steadily without walking since then. Doing longer races I allow myself walk breaks, and probably far too often, so while not stopping was challenging, it was also easier than I had expected.

That will probably be the last track run we'll do until next spring again. Next week is the indoor tri, and after that we're into the middle of December. My next goal will be to do a 4 mile sustained effort run, which I hope to accomplish before our New Year's Eve run. In the meantime, its back inside this week, spinning with running to practice for next week's tri. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Oh, and I did manage to get the tree up. Still working on the decorations, but I'll do a little here, a little there. And got a lot of shopping done even. It was a successful long weekend!