Saturday, December 19, 2009

Winter Wear

Figuring out what to wear in the winter can be... interesting. An exercise in problem solving, at the very least.

And even though I made up my handy-dandy chart to help me figure it out, real life will always be a little more... fluid then legalistic world a chart inhabits. It can never address the issue of a precipitous drop in temperature. Or a significant wind direction change. Or understand the fact that hail driven by 30+ mph winds hurts.

Or, if you prefer, humans don't always run at steady state speeds. We get tired, slow down, and get chilled. Or we hurt something, slow down, and get really chilled- adding insult to injury.

Or we do what the training program tells us. For instance, intervals.

Two mile warm up, four minutes hard and three easy, repeat five times. Four minutes might not seem like a long time, but it adds up. And my body got pretty warm. And Indian spring's middle four miles are protected from the wind by trees- a wind that is generally in my face on the way out and at my back on the way in.

Sadly, it didn't work out that way yesterday. I was mildly uncomfortable- on the ragged edge of shivering uncontrollably, but was generating just enough heat during my 'cool down' run to avoid it.

But it was uphill, and into the wind, and after a successful though tiring interval session. The only thing I think I might have been able to do to make it more comfortable is wear my pack away vest. Let it bounce on my hip during the intervals but wear it on the warm up and cool down. Hm...

No comments: