Winter Running

Winter is coming fast to Ottawa. While the last few days have been a bit warmer, we've had some snow and ice already. Last Friday's run was a typical winter run and as is the case with most runs, I thought of great topics to blog and one of them was how beautiful it can be running in winter. Unfortunately by the time I got home, all my eloquently composed sentences just drained away like the sweat in the shower. One sentence that I remember had something to do with how magical it can be to turn the music off and appreciate the beauty and stillness of a frozen and desolate landscape with nothing else than the crunching sound of a thin layer of ice breaking under my feet. It sounded better at the time with the moon shining over the freezing water of Dow's lake. I do love running in all kinds of conditions and appreciate the variety of conditions that running in Canada gives me.

Winter running can be scary especially to our southern neighbors who right now are blogging about bundling up for their runs in 40/50 Fahrenheit. The trick is layering up and knowing what works. After a few times only, I had learned to add or remove layers as required. I am always amazed at how comfortable I can be running with so little gear, as long as I don't stop or slow down I am usually okay. Slowing down or speeding up to maintain the body temperature can also be quite helpful if the layering are not quite adequate.

I'm pretty happy that I am back within my training plan this week. While I did shift a few things around doing a 10k and a 16k instead of two 13k runs, the total weekly mileage is exactly where it needs to be. Last Sunday's slow and easy 32km run was also quite fast, especially for the last 7km where I met up with the Frontrunners and got too excited while talking to notice that we sped up significantly :) As a result I've been the sorest I remember being in a long time after a training session.