Warm Weather and A Wife on the Run

Date: 01/08/2012
Route:  8 Miles through Hines Park
Distance: 8 Miles
Pace: 10:28/mile
Total Time: 1:23:45
Temp: 35, Sunny

It has been a pretty great week for physical activity around the JD household. The amazingly warm weather around  Detroit continued throughout last week, with Jan 6th coming in at 55! degrees, and highs in the 40's for most of the week. I have taken advantage of this by having a great running week. I ran 4 miles on Wednesday, 3.1 on Friday and 8 today. I figure I better take advantage of this weather while it lasts. While it has been warm, I am counting on a harsh late winter and and spring.

Something else strange happened on Saturday afternoon. The Wife occasionally goes out for a short jog, just to get some physical exercise in. She has NEVER been serious about running or even worrying about how fast she goes. So off she goes on one of these short runs, but in this case we strapped the Garmin 405 to her wrist. I was taking care of CE and starting to get a little bit concerned, as The Wife had been gone over 30 minutes. We are watching out the window, and all of the sudden she appears running down the street, and then she runs right by the house. Now this does not make any sense to me, but she does a lap around the block and comes into the house with a huge grin on her face.

It turns out she ran a 5K. She did not set out to do that, but as she hit milestones, she just kept thinking, "I can do a bit more." I always knew she could run that kind of distance if she wanted to, in fact I am sure she could be faster then me if she wanted to. Trust me, she is built much more like the prototypical runner then myself. If she keeps this up, we can be one of those annoying couples running together with CE in the stroller:

Our Future...HA!

I am hoping to get her into a 5K race this summer, as we all know, once you are in a race, there is no turning back. I was just glad to see how excited she was, running is a passion of mine, and I would love ot be able to share it with her.

Coming later this week, I am going to review a book I recently read, "Ultra Marathon Man" by Dean Karnazes. My preview is simply one word...Wow.

If You Don't Like the Weather, Go for a 20 Minute Run

Date: 12/15/11
Route:  Some Funky Loop that came to 2.12 miles because of a train
Distance: 2.12 Miles
Pace: 10:08/Mile
Running Temp: Started at 42 (wind chill of 39) ended at (34 wind chill 22)
Wind Speed 25 to 44 mph

All day long, I had longingly gazed out my office window into the giant parking lot beyond. I knew that I would be running today, and with injury and sickness, it had been far to long since I had run last. The temperature outside had been teasing me all day. When I went into work it was 57 degrees outside, in mid-December, in Michigan. There was a time when I came out of the office at lunch, and the sun had broken through the clouds, and I just stood there, arms spread wide, soaking up the sunshine. My mind thought it was May.

As I mentioned, both a bout of sore throat, with all requisite additional symptoms and a small injury had combined to seriously hamper the running the past week.  A few weeks back, I am pretty sure I strained my left lower abdomen while sneezing (my sneezes are the ones they talk about in chaos theory.) I had continued to run, because really it was just a minor pain, but it never actually healed. When I realized that I probably should let it rest, I promptly got sick, so it was actually good timing. The ab muscle had not hurt at all in two days though, and when I saw the weather this morning, I was raring to go.

When getting dressed for the run, I was still focused on the days temperature from earlier. I knew the temp was supposed to drop when a new front came in, but it was still relatively nice when I arrived at home. I had on just shorts and a long sleeve tech shirt when I bounded out the door. I turned the corner from behind our house and was hit with a very strong wind. I promptly went back inside and grabbed my throwaway gloves and my Dri-Fit pullover. I figured I would have no problem with the run temp with that gear.

So I started to run into Downtown Plymouth, and I kid you not, I am running into a wall of wind. I have to lean forward just to keep moving. I figured this was a bad sign as I was running west, right where any new weather would come from. All of sudden the wind got cold. It went from a wind you did not notice except for force to a freezing, bitter wind that ate through clothing. My ears started burning as I kept running. As I arrived in Plymouth (despite a detour to keep running with a train blocking my way), I was frigid. The temp had dropped noticeably and there was a light SNOW coming down. I did not even have on my SmartWool headband. I must have looked like a fool to people driving by.

To make matters worse, I had stepped in a huge puddle and my left foot was soaking wet. Every time I took a stride the wind would cut through the wet shoe and freeze my foot. I hightailed it home as fast as I could muster, at least this time the wind was at my back. When I arrived home I checked the temp, and it had dropped 8 degrees, and 17 with windchill. Of course it was my luck that the return to winter had to happen while I was running. I was running in wind steady at 25mph with gusts over 45. The wind had knocked power out a few towns over.

Has anyone out there ever had the weather change that much on them in a  20 minute run? I am up for hearing some crazy weather stories.