Thursday, February 19, 2015

The Cold, The Dilemma, & The "Young Masters"

Florida's neighbors to the north decided to share their cold weather with us. Lovely. My niece would say "sharing is caring Aunty LeAnne", but in this case I think I can do without temperatures in the 30s thank you very much.

It's supposed to be cold for the next few days so unfortunately I can't get away with not running in cold weather. While I couldn't bring myself to venture out into 30 degree temps this morning, I was able to complete a 1 mile run this evening after work/school when the weather was a little bit warmer...

I'm still not a big fan of evening runs, but the sky at dusk was just as pretty as the sunrise views I normally have on my morning runs...
...it almost made the cold weather worth it. Almost. 
I took Kai running with me because math homework had her on the verge of tears this evening. High school math sucks, but homework shouldn't make you cry. Certainly not at 13. So instead of doing the solo run I originally planned to do, I told her she needed to take a break and took her to run. We both did a mile around the running track at a local park, and afterwards I had just enough sensation in my fingers to take a post run selfie with my baby girl...


It was a "slow" mile, but we walked about half as much as we ran...
I have another evening run scheduled for tomorrow, so I felt fine with just doing a one mile run today. And in all honesty, although the run helped Kai "clear her mind" for a bit, she still had to go back and try to finish her homework as best as she could. Plus, it was freezing!!! 

Once we got home I felt for popcorn. I had a relatively late lunch (for me) and it was a lot of food so I definitely wasn't hungry or in the mood for a large meal. I just wanted a snack. Normally I would just chew a stick of my "favorite of the moment" gum, but I gave up gum for Lent (it's going to be a loooong 40+ days). My late lunch was at one of my favorite Thai food restaurants. They have great lunch specials, but there's always that brief moment of trepidation when you're faced with a major food choice dilemma: soup OR salad...
(why can't they just include both???)

I turn 35 this year and (according to an article I was reading in Running Times) that officially puts me in the "Young Masters" age group. I almost feel as though that's not really fair because I just started running (and certainly haven't mastered anything about it). Anyway, it really has nothing to do with when you start or how long it's been since you started; it's all about your age now. In general, the article states that there are speed related changes that can be attributed to the fact that as you get older you tend to run slower...
I think there's some truth to that if you were previously pushing yourself to your maximum potential. But I know many people that started running later in life, and have improved their times significantly over the years. They may not be able to compete against someone at the height of their training in their 20s, but they can certainly compete against themselves and improve over time even as they get older.

How old were you when you started running/racing?

What's your favorite cuisine? 

2 comments:

  1. It was 19* with a feels like of single digits when I ran 13 miles today, so I'm not feeling a lot of sympathy. ;o)

    I definitely got faster until about 40 and I didn't really start running until my mid-30s. I've slowed down (44 now) but some of that might be running lots of long slow runs. I haven't focused on speed in a while.

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    1. I know I shouldn't be complaining :( In the grand scheme of things it could be so much worse. Glad you were able to get your 13 miles done despot the ridiculous temps!!! :)
      I'm hoping that I'll see some improvement in speed soon once I get the improvement in endurance taken care of :)

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