Too Hot

I guess I've done some complaining about the cold.  It's been a bit nippy around here, but I think I convinced myself it was colder than it was.  There is a danger in thinking that it's too cold out:

Ya sweat, ya die.  I'm not exactly leaving civilization when I run so sometimes I don't wear a lot of layers, and the sweat=death mantra doesn't exactly apply since I can't really avoid sweating.  It's fine because I'm putting effort out the entire time to keep myself warm, so there's little risk of hypothermia.  Sometimes I miscalculate how cold it's going to be and that gets miserable; generally, the longer a run is the less you have to wear because you get warmed up after 20-30 minutes, but if you get it wrong and don't wear enough you're chilly the whole way through a long run.  So this Sunday when I went out for fourteen miles I wore three layers on my torso, leggings under my shorts, neoprene FiveFingers, a hat, and gloves.

The first two layers on my torso were light: an inherited Under Armor compression muscle shirt, a light long sleeve shirt, and some sort of synthetic quarter-zip sweatshirt.  I didn't think it would be too warm.  In fact, I was cold for the first half hour or so...my toes especially.  

During that time I was also worried about a nagging shin-splint feeling injury on my left leg.  I passed the time while I warmed up by counting my steps per minute--172, it turns out, which is close to the 180 recommended by barefooters.  So 86 steps per leg in a minute over a two-hour run is about 10000 steps per leg.  That's a lot of repetition for an injury.  Then I wondered if I could get a similar workout to running by hopping up and down 10000 times.  I don't always have profound thoughts when I run, okay.

Anyway, after I got warm I settled into a groove and got to appreciate the sound of winter--or the lack of sound, more accurately.  It's like sound gets too cold to bother running about outside, so it stays close to home.

It's too cold to burble, so I'll just trickle a bit.  Enjoy.

It was quite an easy, enjoyable run.  The wind wasn't too bad, the snow was nice, the sound was nice, the people were nice (some girl enthusiastically waved and said "Hi!" like she knew me), and time went by quickly.  Then I hit mile thirteen.

At mile thirteen an odd sensation started to come over me.  It was familiar, but it took a while to place it, "Oh, snap!  I'm gonna faint!"

I pulled off my sunglasses which had been hiding the tiniest suggestion of tunnel vision in my peripheral vision.  I ripped off my hat, unzipped my quarter zip, and rolled up my sleeves.  Luckily I was only about a mile from home so I knew I'd be fine that, and I was back in a neighborhood instead of farmland, but it was a reminder that I can get overheated even when it's below freezing outside.  It's funny because I had just read an article about that, too.  I've never fainted from overheating but I've come close a few times...I'd rather not do it face first onto some asphalt.

I'll try to be more conscious of my temperature and regulate it via proactive layer removal.  It came on quite suddenly, though, so I'm not sure I could've prevented it except by hydrating over the course of the run. I guess I'll be taking my silly water belt out with me on runs longer than a half-marathon from now on...

Brr.

Not cold by, say, Alaskan standards, but it's chilly:

3?

Even the horses thought it was nippy:

Smug horses with their blankets

I resorted to tying up my hoodie Kenny-style to stay warm yesterday.  As much as I like cheap solutions for running, I broke down and bought one of these guys:  

Also good for thievery!

A friend of mine says they're pretty good.  Looking forward to trying it out.

The knee hasn't flared up at all.  I did almost fourteen Sunday and a hardish six yesterday, so I think I'm good to go.

During the fourteen-miler I ran out to our local windmill farm, something I always wanted to do.

The sign says Wood County Landfill.  I thought I could smell something...

Uh, spinning!

Phantom Patella Pain and Captain Bob

So has anyone else had knee pain that bodes a terrible injury that goes away after 24 hours?

Less than two weeks into my official marathon training and I thought I had a disaster on my hands...or knees, as it were.  Friday was a 30-minute tempo run on an indoor track...I gradually increased my speed to about 10k pace or so (something like 6 min/mile for me).  I finished and was a little tight and had a little bit of a bother in my right knee, but nothing spectacular.  It got worse as the day wore on, though.

Of course, I also made the mistake of violently dropping into a squatting position with this little guy on my shoulders later that day, but can you blame me?  It made him laugh.  Observe the power of Ronin laughter:

Step one: Face in tummy

Step two: Laughing baby

I also gave him a bath later that day which involved pressure on the knees.  At any rate, it's not his fault I'm dumb.

So it started feeling pretty bad by the end of the day Friday and bending my leg to get up and down stairs was difficult.  It was a weird, stabby pain under my patella.  I pulled on a Neoprene sleeve and started taking ibuprofen and naproxin sodium when we ran out of the former two doses later.

When I woke up the next morning I was taking stairs like a two-year-old--left foot right foot next step, left foot right foot next step.  Not good.  I talked to a friend of mine with a doctorate and some personal experience in matters of the knee and athletes and he agreed that it was not good.

Then around seven O'clock something bizarre happened.  The pain started rapidly fading away.  By the end of the day it felt almost all better and I woke up like nothing was wrong.  I took that day off from running too, went to work out this morning, and did six miles at what I hope will be my marathon pace (6:50 min/mile) plus a warmup and cooldown and it felt completely normal.  Well, it felt a little ominous, but now I'm chalking that up to possibly being psychosomatic.

Has that happened to anyone else?  Fourteen hours later and it's still feeling good; I only took one dose of ibuprofen (picked some up yesterday) after I ran just in case but I guess it wasn't needed.

Weird.  Well, I'll bet this hasn't happened to anyone else...

I've been playing poker for a few months now.  They opened a casino about twenty minutes away this summer.  I used to play poker all the time back in college...a lost a couple hundred learning how to play as a freshman, then made a few hundred over the next few years after getting a bit better.  I also made some good friends that I still keep in touch with.

Anyway, part of the game is knowing your opponents.  I like to assign nicknames in my head indicative of their style of play, at least until I know their names.  For example, I've played with this guy before who sat down beside me last night:

What would you call him?

I called this gentleman 'Captain Bob' due to his facial hair, cap, demeanor (happy to be pleasant but can be gruff if the mood strikes), and his aggressive style of play.  We're all doing our thing when Captain Bob tips the dealer and the dealer says, "Thanks, Ron."  I say to myself, "That's not Ron...Ron is the guy next to him," [in the picture Ron has his face in his hand].  I look at the electronic roster built into the table and read it upside down...and the dealer got him and Ron messed up--the roster says Robert for his seat.

"Your name is Bob?" I ask.

"Yes it is."

I chuckle.  "I have to tell you something, but I don't want you to get offended."

"Here we go," someone to my left says.

"In my head I call you 'Captain Bob' to help remember who you are."

"Well, I am a captain!"

"You're joking."

"No!  I've got a boat..." and he proceeds to explain that he owns a boat and he's licensed.

Awesome.

The Weather Outside is Frickin' Freezin'

I guess I shouldn't complain; the coldest I've had to run in so far was in the teens.

But, this is what I was up against the week of Christmas:

Pretty, but a bit blustery

Hum...barefoot ill-advised for non-pro

What's a minimalist to do?

Well...I'm all about doing things on the cheap.  See my award-winning articles on homemade huaraches and flannel.  So I remembered this trick we used to do with our snow boots when we were children:

Oh yes.  I did

I did and it worked...really well!  My feet stayed warm and not wet, and I even saved the bags to reuse (for my feet again, not for like, spare cucumbers to take to a friend's house).  They held up just fine for two trips and probably would've done more.

You can do this yourself.  You don't have to use the obnoxious blue color if you're worried people might worry you're hopeless.  I mean homeless.

By the way, I'm back because I've started the countdown to the Pittsburgh Marathon.  Fifteen weeks out and this year I'm following a schedule (sorta).  We'll see how this goes.  I ran eleven on Sunday, with only one major problem.  Luckily, I was running past a friend's house when the dreaded trots hit.  Many thanks to Bret and his bathroom!