weather

Saturday's run was questionable. I don't have a problem with rain, but I'm not crazy about lightning. It was just drizzling a bit, threatening to rain, but there was lightning in the distance when I started running on the canal with some friends in Team D.

I was going to run 5 or 6 miles today, but, with the temperature as hot as it was, I decided only to run 2 miles. Thus, planning on a morning long run the next day. I started out easy and made some good time through out the first half of the run. On the way back, I noticed that my left shin started to hurt a bit. It's been bothering me since last Saturday's race. So rather than trying to get a good finish time, I down shifted and hobbled back to the house. Kind of a much slower run with some walking here and there. Better to be able to run another day.

I was training out at Fairview track today and as I ran I could see the storm clouds rolling in over the peaks. Spectacular! It is so great training in a place like this.

I was using the track as a base -- the actual sessions was hill repeats. 4 x 90 seconds on the road up a long steady hill, then a walk/jog break, then 10 x 30 seconds up something a little steeper: I chose one of the narrow little tracks that wind up from the lake.

I've only been running for, like, forever (it seems) so I am always surprised that I am so surprised at how intensely I can train when I am feeling so sluggish. You know the feeling? I started my warm-up run at a snail's pace, justifying it with the mantra "Just like the Kenyans, just like the Kenyans". Of course, they get progressively faster while I... don't. But still, it did start to feel a bit easier. And the first hill rep I ran so fast that I had to stop just short of 90 seconds to stuff my heart back in my chest.

Man oh man!! First we woke up to a massive rock slide in the city that nearly leveled Showgirls Cabaret in North Beach. Then, Greenspan's comments yesterday (didn't he retire?) trigger a MAJOR sell-off in the Chinese market (down 9% in a single day), which spilled over in to the U.S. resulting in the biggest drop in the DOW and S&P500 since 9/11. THEN (as if that wasn't enough), the sky opened up for the fourth straight day and dumped rain and hail on the city all day long. If it weren't for the fact that conditions at the Pole will be much worse than anything little ole San Francisco can throw at me (short of the city sliding into the ocean), I'd have blown off my run.

Today was one of those wonder days. First tracks in fresh snow, sunshine, and... a stiff 30 mph wind blowing all the snow off trees and sending spindrift across the trail. One of those days you wish you had your camera, but at the same time you are happy to live in the moment. I couldn't help but to stretch my arms wide in the biggest gusts, daring the wind to lift me up (or at least knock me on my butt). The wonders of a cold front in Boulder.

Well, that was a first...

Happily trotting up a snowy hill today, I was hit by such a strong and sustained gust of wind that for a hilarious five seconds I was running uphill but stuck in place, pinned by the wind.

So, another hard day outon the trails, but the running was spectacular. Heading up the hills into mountain lion territory I couldn't help laughng to myself. Like most runners, my concession to bad weather is to wear a hat and gloves and maybe an extra warm top, but I kept meeting people who were equipped for Polar`expeditions: snow shoes, skis, full Goretex... I kept expecting to turn a corner and see a team of huskies.

When the third person in a row told me the snow and general yucky weather conditions were making them feel irritable, I realised it wasn't just me being afflicted with grumpy old man disease.

But then I cam across a magic tip for getting the most out of bad weather -- while feeling irritable -- from a runner who knew a thing or two about bad weather: Paavo Nurmi, the "Flying Finn", winner of nine Olympic titles.

Famous for training and racing with a stopwatch and dominating every event he entered, he trained lightly in the harsh Finnish winter, it is true. The accepted protocol at the time was to ease into running via long walks. Nurmi later admitted that was a mistake, as it tended to make him stiff as well as taking up too muich training time.