Happy 2022 to my running family
We had a quiet celebration. DH tried to not fall asleep but he slept through the new year ….again Ha! I stayed up till MST hit midnight and the text messages from family and friends subsided. It is so frigid here in northern MN for last few days. No outside activities. But home workouts w weights and PiYo and foam rolling. Sunny today and getting warmer later to about 6 below, LOL!
Our anniversary today as well.
Runs in the rain
Happy New Year my running group friends! Thought I would write down possible goals for this coming year, although this reminds me of a MAD magazine gag where the guy makes a fitness resolution each year which he fails to achieve, even though he lowers it each year, and then is current resolution is "to set realistic goals for myself". Perhaps I am embarrassing my future self by stating goals I may never attain, but these are what I am considering. Sorry for the length of this post, you don't have to read it, but I think some of you find my ideas interesting at times.
Now my big goal is to eventually qualify to run the Boston Marathon. For 2022 they accepted all runners who met the qualifying times, although in 2021 you needed to be 7 minutes and 47 seconds faster to exceed the cutoff since the field is restricted.The qualifying time for 70 - 74 year olds is now a 4:20 marathon, that's a 9:55 pace. I think I may want to do better than that just in case they do have a cutoff, like a 4:10 or to feel totally confident of getting to Boston a 4:05 marathon (9:20 pace). Ideally I would like to run a four hour marathon (9:09 pace) or even do the whole race at an 8mm pace (a 3:29:45 marathon), but those may be goals beyond my scope. My personal best was in 1998 when I did a 4:10:44 marathon, a 9:34 pace, I guess like 25 years later I would have to try to match that.
Right now I am not in great shape and need to build up to long distances and high weekly mileages. Also, my speed is rather slow, even for a plodder like me! Furthermore I still have prostate issues and because hospitals here are still dealing with the pandemic I've not really made an appointment with my urologist to try to resolve this issue. If, let's say in spring, I get some surgery to fix this I may be in recovery for several weeks and that would set me back. If I go without surgery I expect I would need multiple bathroom breaks for any long run. Either way may make it unrealistic to BQ this year, never the less I would still like to run a full marathon come this fall. Of course there is no predicting what health or other obstacles may occur. Note I have a physical exam with my doctor this Tuesday.
I think my main goal will be to build up a good base by increasing my weekly distance. Experience informs me that my speed and endurance improves if I do more running if nothing else. As a step for this goal I added a pace bunny to my RA Summary page to run 2022 miles this year! That's about an average of 5 1/2 miles a day or 38.9 miles a week. Now when I am training to run a marathon I usually exceed that weekly distance, at least by several weeks of running 45 miles or more! However right now I am not ready to run that weekly distance and expect to fall further behind the pace bunny each week. Hopefully by May I'll be doing greater weekly distances, but it may be unrealistic to think I can catch the bunny. However to BQ I may need to have large weekly distance, many who BQ run 100 miles or more each week, don't know if that is feasible for me, but I did do a 70 mile week a few years ago.
When running my marathons my goal in the past was just to finish. I never was too concerned with my speed, perhaps I would run some sections at a faster pace, but never trained with intervals. I think I would benefit with some speed work! I am thinking of using my usual training method of starting with tiny distances and just gradually increasing. I am thinking of trying a 7 minute mile pace and start with seeing if I can maintain that the distance from one telephone pole to another, which I estimate as being .05 of a mile (1/20th of a mile). That would be maintaining that pace for just 21 seconds. The next week I could add another half telephone pole distance for .075 and then get to a tenth of a mile by my third week. As you may have calculated at this rate I would be running a whole 7 minute mile before week 40 if I can keep it up! Yes, I know most plans would have you focus first on less intense goals, but I like to experiment on myself with made up plans. I think it good to train with various paces so I would start adding other intervals with like 8mm pace, 9mm pace and 10mm pace. I would do these intervals one or two days a week.
The other speed work would be tempo runs at paces ranging from near race pace to slightly faster, let's say a range of 10mm to 8 1/2mm. I may need to warm up with a mile or two at an easy pace and then end with a easy mile also. I think it would be good to be able to finish some of my long runs with like 4 miles or more at my goal race pace. Another good training would be to do an easy 12 miler and then the next day do 12 miles at my race pace.
Another training technique is to do hill work, just about any long run in my area involves some climbs, but I do have some courses that have some particularly steep hills that I could run more often, perhaps doing repeats up and down the hill.
I regard the distance run as important for the marathon. Now I tried training by running no more than 18 miles as my long distance as many modern plans recommend, but was unhappy with the results, I felt I was not prepared for the longer 26.2 mile distance. I would feel more confident if I could do a lot of 20 miles or more runs! Yes, they can wear you down, but I think I need to know I am ready to go the distance.
I am looking at treadmills to get one for home use. One would allow me to run regardless of conditions outside, if it was raining, snowing or just too dark I could still run inside. I would not have to dress for the cold and could catch a quick run whenever I wanted. I also like that on a treadmill you can set the pace so I would know I am maintaining a given speed for the time I want. It was suggested I get a lightweight inexpensive one ( about $300 range) that can fold up and be moved around. The downside to that is it may not have the fast paces I want, some only get to 6 MPH, a 10mm pace. They also are not built to hold up long to the strain of serious running. The better treadmills may provide the quicker paces and hold up for many years. The cons to those are the costs, like $1500 or more, and they are very heavy and I could not move them around myself. Probably someone would have to come into the house to set it up. I would also need to find room to put one since they can take up space
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I do need to incorporate more cross training, strength training and rest days. I liked doing the bike rides and I could do a morning run followed by an evening bike ride. I would like to get to know more of the local trails by taking some hikes. I have a weight set and should start doing curls and bench presses. There is a exercise trail in the park just around the corner where I can try to do pull ups, sit ups and push ups (lots of ups!). I will have a lot of garden work come spring. I have learned that sometimes you may need days where you just rest, particularly when you are increasing training intensity.
So if I follow all these plans and meet my goals perhaps I could even reach some "impossible" goals! I already mentioned running a 3:29:45 marathon (8mm pace), or how about a 21:44 5K (7mm pace) and a 1:51:25 half (8 1/2 mm pace)? I would also at some time like to do an ultra, like a 50K (31 miles). I should also like to do the "Bear" race that my sister in North Carolina has done, a five mile race where the last two have a 1000 foot elevation gain going up Grandfather's Mountain. Perhaps it is foolish to even consider these difficult tasks, but if I can achieve the BQ I think I can dream about higher goals!
Long distance runner, what you standin' there for?Get up, get out, get out of the door!
Led - Glad you clarified where the photos were taken, I just assumed they were from Colorado! I recall the lead tinsel shorting out the electric train tracks!
Art - great to exceed your mileage goal for the year! Most winter days in northwestern New York are dark and gloomy due tio the lake effect. So enjoy the sunny days when you can!
az - Congratulations to you and your DH on the anniversary! So 6 below as the warm part of the day? I have never done a sub zero run. I think it was in the fifties here yesterday, I was walking around in my yard in a tee shirt. Right now it is 5:23 and still 40 degrees outside. So far we have not had much snow and what we did get quickly melted. Of course that will soon change to more typical teens and single digits at night and then warming to the 20's by the afternoon.
New Years Eve we had shrimp and stir fried vegetables over rice, crab rangoon and veggie egg rolls, kind of a "Chinese" New Year. We stayed up to watch the ball drop at midnight in Times Square and then to 1 am our time, but midnight in New Orleans. The "New Years Rocking Eve" TV show had a lot of contemporary music, most of it, even the country and Latin songs, seemed Rap music based. Interesting, but not really my sort of music! The New Orleans did have a traditional jazz band playing on a riverboat! Woke up at 8 am and looked for the Rose Bowl Parade, too early so I fell back asleep until after 9 am. It seems the parade started at 11 am our time. I just felt like resting so no exercise today. It was drizzly outside, but not too cold.
I like looking at my graphs and will post more of them as a good way of communicating where I am in my training. Unfortunately the runs I did for the first half of last year I never entered into my RA log, so I can't graph all of last year, not on RA anyway, until I enter them manually. Note I am now set up some the Garmin imports the data right to the RA log.
I was blocked or security issues last night when I tried to log into Runningahead, but the problem seems to have resolved itself! I did make a post in Technical issues expressing my concerns. Anyway, I just wanted to report on yesterday's afternoon run. It had been lightly snowing all day and it was 24 degrees so I dressed warmly. I ran a bit over five miles, slightly increasing the distance of the last long run before I felt sick. With the snowflakes blowing in my face it really felt like a winter run and until March I expect I'll be facing even more severe conditions as I run outside. However I dressed warmly and even had to remove my scarf and gloves before the end of the run because I felt too warm. My pace was terribly slow, but I still feel like I am accommodating to these longer distances and will improve with time.
During much of the run I was thinking about the pace bunny, a feature I have not used before. It does exert a psychological pressure to keep up, but I don't feel ready yet to do 39 mile weeks. I did not run on the 1st and yesterday's run was a half mile short of the required average run of 5 1/2 miles, so I am already like six miles behind and can expect to fall further behind as I expect it may be weeks or even several months before I am running like 40 miles a week. I will see how my body recovers from my runs, but would not be surprised if I may feel the need for days of reduced millage or rest days where I don't run. I am going to keep up the gradual distance increase of my longer runs, I expect to get up to over 40 mile weeks by the spring or early summer, most likely over 45 miles a week, giving me a chance to catch up. Never the less I think I started something I was not yet ready for. Anyway it is interesting to see in my summary a record of my total miles for the year.
Mostly sunny for this afternoon's run, but only 17 degrees! Still it felt nice when the sun was shining and warmed enough to remove the scarf after the first mile. My idea was to run what would be the average daily distance I would need to keep up with the pace bunny, so 2022 divided by 365 is just about 5.54 miles. I actually did 5.61 miles and it was a effort to do the distance at this early stage in my training. Good I had the camera because it gave me some rest stopping to take pictures! I felt tired by the end of my run. I will see how I feel and what the weather is tomorrow and decide if I am ready to run this far again. Some nice views along the road for this run
Even the horses were covered up for the cold!
It was mostly sunny, but here the sun is behind a dark cloud.
Trails
Happy New Year everyone. I'm not sure why we say that at the beginning of the year as we have no clue if it'll be happy or not...perhaps a Wish you a happy new year would be better. Anyway...I did something to my left knee so haven't been walking or anything but I have been doing better on the vegetarian side but I will say meal prep is a pain in the...
Been cold as all get out here...was in the low teens this weekend and looks to be getting that way again. Thurs high is supposed to be 23. I'm trying to stay away from people as much as possible as I'm convinced everyone will eventually get the new variant but with an unvaccinated coworker who shares my office and has 4 small children at home I don't give myself much in the way of chances. Since I'm vaxxed and boosted I'm hoping for the best even with the kidney disease.
You all have a wonderful new year.
not bad for mile 25
Catching up...
Friday the 31st - Back home on a foggy morning. Ran around the lake with the dog:
...then did 3.2 solo on a city trail. Fog was just starting to make sidewalks slick.
We had kids/grandkids over for fondue New Year's Eve, and had a good time. Since their bedtime is around 8:00, we let the GDs watch and count with the cuckoo clock while I advanced its hands to midnight. Then a big group hug and sent them home. Nice and quiet after that, and we watched drunks on Times Square for a while, then I went to bed. I technically was awake for the official new year (comforting the dog, who didn't like the fireworks),
Saturday the 1st: Temp of 3F, blowing and snowing. Not going long today but took the dog for 1.3 miles at the dog run. She thought the weather was great.
Sunday the 2nd: -4F but calm. Did doggie run (this time the cold snow between her toes bugged her) and a solo of 3.6 miles. I don't think it was -4 by the end of this run, but it was on the nippy side.
Monday the 3rd: A balmy 10 degrees, and it's back to work today (after a dentist visit).
Tuesday the 4th: A sultry 26F. Short run before a 7:30 am blood donation.
Here's to a happy New Year Everybody!
az -
Led: I’ve driven through Scottsbluff, NE to and from AZ when we lived in ND. Good job on the photos. Do you have family there? So when & where is your first race for this year?
No family in Scottsbluff; We just decided we should stop there for a visit on our way home from Fort Collins, rather than blowing past it as we usually do. I am starting to think about 2022 races - can't help it, getting peppered with spam by all the ones that have my email. The earliest one is a 5 mile in February. It's in a small neighboring town, and it's pretty fun, if the weather cooperates. They give out a lot of door prizes, too!
Altair - I like your training goals and plans. Hopefully they can come to fruition now that you are retired. One thing I think I would add is more short races, which give you some intermediate challenges and gauges of your progress. I know you do the race around the bear fountain. Are there other races accessible to you?
You mentioned the goal widget on your log page possibly being discouraging in the early stages of your buildup. One idea I had is to set it as a quarterly goal requiring more moderate daily mileage at first. Actually, you could keep the annual widget, but add a quarterly one as well that requires only 20-30 miles/week. Just a thought.
Di - Sorry your knee is giving you trouble. Hope it's a minor passing thing.
Art - Good job getting 1000 in 2021, plus a lot of bike miles. Colorado got hit with snow the day after we left. Our timing was great in that regard.
My last post was on NY's Day ......
Saturday: it did get 'warmer' to about -6, felt like -11 with windchill but the sun did peeked out for a couple of hours. So I talked myself into keeping my yearly commitment of running on New Year's day no matter where I am. Although I didn't think I would be living in MN in the winter when I made that pledge, haha! So I barely finished 3 miles at the fairground, solo. It was scary on the frontage road about 1/2 mile each way to and from entrance to fairground. Just to be on the safe side, I stopped and got as far off the shoulder of the road when a vehicle passed.
Sunday: 2.2 miles of 'running' with snowshoes at the fairground. DH drove me there and he walked Bones in his new 'snow boots'. It was very awkward for him and funny to watch at the same time, haha! Relieved he didn't lose one of them. Pretty cold, around 4 degrees, -12 with windchill, partly cloudy.
Monday: barely finished running 3 miles at fairgrounds again. DH dropped me off as he took Bones to the vet for a checkup. Around 8 degrees, -3 with windchill but it was sunny for a couple of hours. Bones got a new toy, I didn't.
Tuesday (today): I can't believe I got in 4.5 miles at the state park, solo. DH dropped me off while he ran a quick errand and picked me back up. It was the 'warmest day' so far. 16 degrees!! Felt like 12 with windchill, kinda cloudy but I finished, yay!
It's suppose to snow tonight into tomorrow. Going to see if I can get in a few miles of snowshoeing tomorrow since the high will be around 10 degrees.
Then the temps are going to plummet with the predicted ice storm, brrrrr ............ till Saturday. Guess home workouts for next few days.
We had an interesting weekend .......at least 2 vehicles each day (3 on New Year's eve) would skid and end up in the ditch at the side of our driveway. There is a slight curve in the road that drivers tend to underestimate each winter and they don't slow down, and it doesn't take much for their vehicles to get pulled by the deep snow into the ditch. Nobody hurt but cars get bent up. Tow truck was pretty busy, I think he was parked at the store nearby waiting for the next call.
Altair: Thank you for the photos, love the horse pic! Now that you have more time, those are do-able goals and it looks like you know what you need to work towards them. Have you checked out some training plans? I do that alot and loosely follow one that I know I can stick with but still have room to change it up when needed. There are plans that includes a race to get use to the distance at that time, like a 10K or a HM. I understand what you mean about a long run of 20+ miles for a marathon. I did a long run of 18 miles twice as a training run for a road marathon and didn't feel ready as well although I still got a decent time but I think it's because I was running those training miles on mountain trails with lots of ups and downs. I'm cheering for you to get a qualifying time for Boston. I know that is your top goal. Having a TM is convenient during winter months. I'm beginning to think about it more. It sure makes it easier to not have to drive into town to a fitness place to run on a TM. Hope you find one in your price range.
Led: wow! You've been out daily for some good miles despite the weather. Sounds like you had a good time visiting DD in CO and enjoying the drive back with a short detour north through NE. It's nice to just stop and 'smell the flowers' ......and get in a run or hike. That's my kind of trip! I ran the Twisted Crawdad trail run some years ago (even tho I was barely recovered from an ankle injury) on my way back to AZ from MN. It was held in August at that time but it's been changed to October now. Check it out. https://pineridgetrailsraceseries.com/about-tc/
Where and What is your race in Feb? Must be a small race if it gives out tons of bling!! Love those, LOL!
Diane: Oh dear!! Not a good way to start off the new year........what do you think happened to your left knee? Not much you can do except to give it some rest. Did you get it checked out? Gosh, a cold front went through your area so I'm sure it threw everyone for a loop although it does happen. I'm sure it gets really windy, right? You're keeping as safe as you possibly can so I'm sure you'll be ok no matter what. I don't consider myself a vegetarian but my meals have been mostly plant-based. I have to admit that I'm glad DH doesn't mind eating meatless recipes that I enjoy cooking. He still gets his burger or steak on a weekly basis. I'm glad it's working for you. That's a positive for the start of the new year!
Art: You're probably getting in some miles of running and biking at the start of the new year! I was thinking how the Midnight Madness run event went? I like their race top, it was orange this time. The medal for the years we ran it were pretty cool too. There are so many races in the valley at this time due to mild winter temps. Hope you are staying warm though. There are odd days when Phx does get cold.
Saturday morning got in 4 miles after waking up a little later then usual. Seems there were a lot of people celebrating the new year Friday night.
Sunday morning did 4.2 miles before breakfast. Wind was blowing pretty good when I was along the canal but bearable the other times. Cleaned up a few things in the garden. So far the lone tomato plant is hanging on. It should be OK with the sun being out during the day now.
Monday morning did another 4.2 miles before handling work calls.
Had work early Tuesday so didn't get out until after dinner. Had a salad from the garden with dinner. Did 2 miles in the dark. Most of the Christmas lights have been taken down so wasn't as interesting as last week.
AZ - It's hard to get too motivated to go outside when the temps get like that. I am going to look for a 5K to run to see how I feel about racing again.
Altair - It will be easier getting to your goal without having to worry about work burning you out. Having the goal and working out a plan to achieve it is a good way to help keep things on track. I think incorporating all those types of exercises and hiking helps with the running. And getting the garden ready is certainly a good way to work the upper body.
Diane - Hope your knee feels better. It's puzzling why we aren't doing anything strenuous or twisty and all of a sudden a pain pops up for no apparent reason. Then takes a while before it goes away.
Led - Just reading about the temps there gave me the chills. Good job getting out in those temps. Missing the snow on the drive home was a good thing. Saw on the news about those poor souls that got stuck on I-95 in Virginia. That was terrible.
Art in AZ
Mesa, AZ
Art: rooting for the lone tomato plant ...... The snowstorm left about 2-3 inches of snow overnight, and colder temps with very low visibility with the 32 mph wind blowing the fluffy snow all over the state. The high will be zero degree, minus 20 w the windchill, whoa!! in our area. Not too motivated to go out for a run in those conditions even after renewing my ATRA membership and checking out trail races in the SW states. That would be stupid and dumb, haha! I get what you're thinking on running a race to see if you want to run races ........ you're good at 5K so that should be a good distance for you. I hope you don't mean not racing at all anymore. What about cycling races? My brother & SIL really enjoy those.
Wed: So we woke up to fresh snow and a windy morning that will continue for most of the day. My joints weren't too happy with the artic temps but I got my workout done.......very slowly....... with weights and PiYo and foam rolling. DH is still thinking about whether he should clear the driveway, haha! He is still working on the Chevy Laguna, getting the ordered parts on time and getting help in town when needed. It runs but he's redoing the brakes. Once he gets it done to his satisfaction, we will haul it down to AZ......in a couple of weeks. I've been packed since I got back from AZ last month, LOL!
Di - I am sure "Wish you a" is implied when people say "Happy New Year", just like in "Merry Christmas!" Sorry the knee is troubling you, I hope it improves. Vegetarian cooking can be fun, sometimes I watch cooking shows for ideas. I am hoping that enough unvaccinated get some mild variant and then get an immune response. If enough develop antibodies that will move us towards herd immunity, but try to stay safe until then.
Led - Nice photo of the foggy lake! Your smart phone takes great photos! Tricky moving the clock hands ahead so you could get the kids off to home and bed. I seem to recall staying up to midnight when I was little, my mom would have us go outside and bang pans together to make noise. I did hear a bit of fireworks outside, but not much. Once I was in Chinatown in NY City during Chinese New Year and they were setting off mats of firecrackers all down the street. Your negative degree temperatures are much colder than anything I've run in, although I did go snowshoeing years ago in 3 degree weather. Most likely I could find at least one race in my vicinity every week, well maybe not so much in winter! Now that I have the time and not working each weekend I could do that, but want to wait until the Covid numbers drop down. The Pace Bunny is not discouraging, it is just I am impatient in how long it takes to get back to running fitness.
az - Like Led you are out running in much colder temperatures than myself. I think Sage could use a pair of Bone's snow boots! The snowshoes let you get out moving even in heavy snow. An ice storm does not sound good, you may lose power when trees come down. The block I grew up on was an "L" shape with our house being on the inside corner of the "L". Several times cars missed the turn and smashed into our garage, the car or the house. Good business for a tow truck. I was going to write a story about a one-way dead-end street, cars come in and can't come out! Good location for a "Chop Shop"! I have a whole shelf of running books but just like to use those plans as a reference in making up my own plans. In the two marathons I've run in recent years they were preceded by the local half marathon several weeks before. Glad you agree about 20+ mile training runs, most modern plans cut off around 16 to 18 miles. I'd just use the treadmill at the fitness center if not for Covid, it is just 1/4 mile away from my house! I'm sure you will be happy to return to the warmer Arizona climate in a few weeks!
Art - I guess you were one of those people celebrating and that's why you woke up late! I guess you and I have it soft with warmer above zero temperatures, although I'd guess 15 degrees would seem pretty cold for you! Keep that tomato plant alive, maybe cover it when you expect a frost! Tomorrow, January 6th, is Epiphany and the end of the Christmas season. So tomorrow will be the last night I keep on the Christmas lights. Wish I had done a night run on Christmas Eve, most people have already took down the decorations. It is one thing to make plans but what counts is the execution! It remains to be seen how far I can get.
Yesterday I went for a physical. My doctor had the bloodwork results and said it mostly looked good. Liver, kidneys and sugars he said were all good, only my cholesterol was a little high, but not enough for me to need medication. . I intend to work on that, more exercise should help. I bought ingredients to make bran muffins which can help.
I felt a bit sore from Monday's 5.6 mile run, not used to the distance! It was nice and sunny Tuesday, but I decided to work on things around the house. Today I intended to get out, but was doing things on the computer and it was gloomy out so I am getting another rest day. I might do better with more recovery time at this stage of the game! Anyway, I caught up with entering my runs into my log and made some graphs! Here is my weekly millage from August 2011 up to the end of 2021! Now I was running before that time period, but don't have a consistent record of those runs! I did do a marathon in 2004 and then had not done much until resuming running and racing in 2011 with a 5K. You can see a red line for where I did a half in 2014 and have continued to do that race every year, at least until recently. You can see longer red lines for 2017 and 2018 when I did the Wineglass Marathon and followed by my last half in 2019. After that I had the kidney stone issue and then this pandemic, plus the work issues and you can see how I've regressed. As you can see my training has been very inconsistent, building up for a big race and then just slacking off for the winter! I hope now to retain fitness by being more consistent, it is hard to build back up again. Note my rapid buildup of 2018 got me up to a 70 mile week, however my time for the 2017 marathon was much better having that bigger base! The lesson is width is better than length, at least in a graph of building a good running base! So my intent now is to try and get used to longer runs again and aim for 40+ miles a week. It may take until spring for me to get there!
whooweee!! It's another artic day here! The high is -6, feels like -22 at this time, it was much colder this morning. At least the sun is shining now, yay! But I'm not going out there. LOL! DH and Bones bravely faced the frozen tundra with a short walk, with his winter coat and his snow shoes. Bones does not like them, he started 'grumbling' and didn't want to move from his warm bed , LOL!! Anyway, I finished a longer workout this morning, getting in some jumping rope between PiYo, and weight exercises. Whew!
Altair: Good idea to have a physical checkup. Glad you don't need RX meds. Staying active and healthy eating are my never-ending goals because I don't want to take any RX meds. So far, so good. Some ppl do much better having a log of their runs. I write them down, not just the distance but the intensity, which trail, how I felt before, during and after, if what/when I ate affected me, the weather, etc. It takes alot of patience to follow a training plan. The advice of most running coaches/training plans is not to do too much, too soon, too often. As you can see from my recent runs, they have been short and in the 2-5 mile range, mostly due to winter conditions of MN. I usually stay with a certain distance range for awhile because I want to 'normalize' the distance for my body to adapt to the increase in stress and fatigue. I don't like to feel 'sore' so I tend to do more post-run exercises to decrease the expected soreness/aches which seems to work in my case. I really hope you achieve your goals. It's unpredictable how our body will react but you seem to be in tune to how your body feels after each run. That's a great start. Last but not least, remember it's suppose to be fun.
az - Indoor exercises are good to do when it gets that cold out! Bones needs to get over his aversion to the cold, a short walk can't be that bad! I was looking at an old running log and I have runs dating from 1995! Unfortunately I only estimated distance and did not record any times for these early runs, Also there is a gap in my records from 2001 to 2010. I did train for a marathon at that time, but did not keep a log. Also there were many years where I was not running due to an achilles tendon problem. When I started some stretching exercises and some light runs that problem went away. To stay within a distance range to normalize your body is something I often consider, but find it helps to do a longer run to adapt to a given distance. For example if I do a six miler I find doing a five miler the next week pretty easy. My plan right now is to focus on doing the longer runs and if I feel sore I'll just use rest days to recover. I enjoy the longer runs better, although I may be just about out of steam by the end of my run. I do try to listen to my body but it can be a tough call between challenging yourself or doing recovery. If it does not feel like fun I will often cancel my run.
After two days of rest I was ready to tackle a six mile run! The course had a climb to the 3 mile turnaround of 220 feet with 170 feet of that being in mile 3! Legs got a workout climbing, but a nice downhill on the way back! It was 28 degrees and partly cloudy. Watch said I did 6.15 miles, but there was a glitch near the start that had me at a 3:50 minute mile pace! Wish I was that fast! Legs felt tired by the end of the run. Here is a dramatic view of the clouds, but the extreme contrasts are an artifact of the camera! I was trying to show the sun behind the clouds but bright area got washed out and the landscape got too dark.
A more realistic picture! This is from the turnaround point which was an overpass over route 390. This is looking back from where I had run.
These are pictures looking at a field, one show a corner of a barn and the second picture captures some interesting textures.
It was snowing heavy this morning with some big flakes, but it did not last long. Just a few flakes were falling as I started my run at 1 pm and it was 21 degrees. Mostly cloudy the first 4 miles then the sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds. Garmin says I did 6.3 miles.This barn is a bit over a mile from my house and recently there were horses there, but now it seems closed down and they removed a wooden sign that had a picture of a fox.
Some trees and a distant view. The horizon behind the middle trees seems whited out, maybe from distant snowfall.