The Running Thread - 2019

[Jules76126]

Catching up after traveling for Thanksgiving as well as shoveling out from a snowstorm.

Thankful - I am thankful that I can continue to run each and every day. I have really started to enjoy running as a stress reliever. I am also thankful for the supportive running community here.

I did buy a few things on Black Friday, although nothing Disney related. I bought the AfterShokz deal so was able to get my husband a pair for free. We went with the Titanium ones. Tried them out for the first time last night. Had to adjust them a few times, but I am impressed with how well they worked. I could hear things in the gym, but it was not distracting. I loved that they didn't bounce around or fall off. I probably could have bought the minis as these are a little big, but was concerned about those begin too small. Also went to the local outlet mall and got new shoes for both DH and I. He got him NB for $35. The Nikes I wanted were still $100+ on discount so I went with the Pegasus 35 (always run in Pegasus) and with the discount were a more reasonable $45. DH also bought a new long sleeve under armor shirt.

For travel - all my races have been local and DH always comes. I tell him he doesnt need to, but secretly I love that he is cheering for me at the finish line and is there to hold my stuff (first world problems). Sometimes he even runs the race as well. If I was traveling, most likely I would still have him come. I travel for work solo and I am an extrovert so prefer company.

 

[Professor_Cookie]

If anyone is interested Saucony Peregrine 8 Ice+ are on sale through their website for 89.97.

 

[FFigawi]

Anyone have advice to make the treadmill a bit more pleasant? I try to run outside but it’s occasionally necessary to hit the gym with he days so short. I find quick or interval days reasonably entertaining, but i tried to do an hour long easy paced run at the gym yesterday and wanted to pull my hair out. A podcast helped some.

Having trained for an Ironman in Iraq where my running options were a treadmill or a parking lot, here are some tips for you. One, get a big iPad and load it with movies, TV shows, and streaming apps. Two, use Zwift. It’s entertaining and has good workouts you can do. Three, take a break after every hour or episode to refuel, rehydrate, and stretch your legs a bit.

 

[JulieODC]

Thankful that RunDisney has allowed me to achieve things I never expected - half marathons, and soon a marathon.

on Black Friday, I bought a half marathon registration! Providence in May!

 

[AntimonyER]

Oh, and I didn't buy any running gear for myself on Black Friday, but I did buy my daughter a Vivoactive 3 ($100? Yes please) and a pair of Brooks Glycerins (how does she get nicer shoes than me I ask my wife).

 

[Waiting2goback]

Thankful that RunDisney has allowed me to achieve things I never expected - half marathons, and soon a marathon.

on Black Friday, I bought a half marathon registration! Providence in May!

100%. Disney/runDisney helped me change my life. It was because of that ToT race that I stuck with running when it would have been easy to quit.

 

[bovie]

Having trained for an Ironman in Iraq where my running options were a treadmill or a parking lot, here are some tips for you. One, get a big iPad and load it with movies, TV shows, and streaming apps. Two, use Zwift. It’s entertaining and has good workouts you can do. Three, take a break after every hour or episode to refuel, rehydrate, and stretch your legs a bit.

Downloaded Zwift and I’m super intrigued. Do you use their foot pod or something else? I saw that it could Bluetooth to some treadmills, but I don’t think the ones at Planet Fitness are Bluetooth capable.

 

[FFigawi]

Downloaded Zwift and I’m super intrigued. Do you use their foot pod or something else? I saw that it could Bluetooth to some treadmills, but I don’t think the ones at Planet Fitness are Bluetooth capable.

I use their footpod but the Stryde works well too

 

[TheHamm]

Question:
Do you run with routine of time or place? How much mixing it up do you do? Do you find the unpredictability fun or unwelcome?

Why I am thinking of this/my answer:
I used to travel extensively for work and for fun, but cut back to only fun when my kids were born. Then I took up running. I do fine getting in my miles when I work and I run the same route M-F because I have a closed, hilly vehicle track I can use at lunch in winter and I have a reasonable route to run in the semi-dark before work. It requires very little creative thinking or planning. I often think I would like a different varied route, but I rarely pull it off. Now I am back to traveling for work and I find it really hard to get in the miles when not at home. When traveling for work I sleep oddly (this is necessary for work sometimes), and I am not always in a place with outdoor running or a treadmill.
I wonder if this is a common issue. I wonder how other cope with unpredictability.

When we are home for the weekend I have the same 3 routes I run out of love or convenience. I do a bit better with variation here because I have time, but I keep going back to the same routes.

 

[Chaitali]

I do have a pretty standard routine but I vary it depending on weather and schedule. I have a couple different routes around my house and a couple local paved trails I'll use for long runs. In Summer I do all my runs in the morning and in the Winter I switch the weekday runs to after work. I'll move things around depending on weather if there's better running weather at a certain time or to avoid the rain, etc. I travel for work just a couple times a year but I agree it's harder to stick with things when I'm traveling and my routine is off.

 

[avondale]

Question:
Do you run with routine of time or place? How much mixing it up do you do? Do you find the unpredictability fun or unwelcome?

Why I am thinking of this/my answer:
I used to travel extensively for work and for fun, but cut back to only fun when my kids were born. Then I took up running. I do fine getting in my miles when I work and I run the same route M-F because I have a closed, hilly vehicle track I can use at lunch in winter and I have a reasonable route to run in the semi-dark before work. It requires very little creative thinking or planning. I often think I would like a different varied route, but I rarely pull it off. Now I am back to traveling for work and I find it really hard to get in the miles when not at home. When traveling for work I sleep oddly (this is necessary for work sometimes), and I am not always in a place with outdoor running or a treadmill.
I wonder if this is a common issue. I wonder how other cope with unpredictability.

When we are home for the weekend I have the same 3 routes I run out of love or convenience. I do a bit better with variation here because I have time, but I keep going back to the same routes.

ATTQOTD: I mostly have routines that I follow. I have certain routes that I run if I want something hillier/flatter, or if I need to have a quicker turn-around time to my next commitment. Also, it depends on the time of year, because I have different routes closer to home that I run when it's dark.

On the other hand, when I travel, I like to run in new places just to see the area a bit. So if possible, I plan to run an out-and-back from my hotel in a different direction each day. This depends a lot on conditions and where I'm at.

 

[Neon Cactus]

At home, I usually have the same routes that I run for 5k and 10k distances. For longer runs, I'll change it up somewhat, but it usually encompasses parts of my shorter runs in it. I'm planning on trying something new tonight. There's a neighborhood in Dallas that's famous for Christmas lights and I don't like sitting in traffic. But I need a long run, so instead of running in the morning, I'm going to run through there tonight, see the lights and it's about 9 miles round trip, plus distance in the neighborhoods. When I travel, I usually spend quite a bit of time looking around trying to find places to run and then try to find the time around work to get the runs in.

 

[RunDopey]

Question:
Do you run with routine of time or place? How much mixing it up do you do? Do you find the unpredictability fun or unwelcome?

Why I am thinking of this/my answer:
I used to travel extensively for work and for fun, but cut back to only fun when my kids were born. Then I took up running. I do fine getting in my miles when I work and I run the same route M-F because I have a closed, hilly vehicle track I can use at lunch in winter and I have a reasonable route to run in the semi-dark before work. It requires very little creative thinking or planning. I often think I would like a different varied route, but I rarely pull it off. Now I am back to traveling for work and I find it really hard to get in the miles when not at home. When traveling for work I sleep oddly (this is necessary for work sometimes), and I am not always in a place with outdoor running or a treadmill.
I wonder if this is a common issue. I wonder how other cope with unpredictability.

When we are home for the weekend I have the same 3 routes I run out of love or convenience. I do a bit better with variation here because I have time, but I keep going back to the same routes.

I am fine with repeatability and have a 3 mile crushed gravel loop that I have run a lot. I do tend to try and mix up surfaces/elevations depending on the type of my next race. I have made the mistake of running soft surfaces only for a road race and it was a learning experience.

 

[Kerry1957]

I'm pretty lucky that I have a 30 mile river trail (crushed limestone and dirt) about a half mile from my house. I start at different places along the trail to mix it up a bit, but I've run on it over 2,000 miles in the past three years.

 

[Baloo in MI]

ATTQOTD: I really like to have a lot of different options in routes. I am pretty lucky that from my neighborhood I have many directions to go and can put together lots of different distances and routes on sidewalk and semi-protected routes. But when I want to get on trails I do have to drive a bit or settle for just a few locations that I am pretty tired of running. So for me when I want a good trail run the drive is worth it for sure!

 

[McNs]

Some A's to Q's of the D:

Thankful to b able to run. Had a 3 month layoff due to injury and I didn't like it! I'm being more careful now and trying not to push too hard. Didn't buy anything

I run a combination of the ultimate mix up running and regular routes. I'm currently working towards running Every Single Street in my city - quite the task and I recently found a website that tracks this and informed me I am less that 10% of the way there. To be fair the definition of the city is of the wider region rather than just a city - for my local area I am up to 85% of the streets run. The website is called CityStrides if anyone is interested, link to my profile page here: https://citystrides.com/users/12104 You can also follow along on Strava https://www.strava.com/athletes/12783905 (think that works?)

When I'm not running an Every Single Street run, I have some loops of local streets I run. Not too much traffic or roads to cross, I know where all the dodgy bits of sidewalk are, and I can petty much run any distance.

When travelling, I love getting out and running the area I'm in. Fortunately most of the places I visit are pretty safe and without weather extremes, and there is something special about running in a city as it wakes up

 

[flav]

ATTQOTD: Around my work downtown, there are two obvious choices for running: The mountain and the river side. Both allow for different distances from 1 to 10 miles so that covers most of my lunch running. Around my house, I try to vary it a bit but I have pretty much covered all the little streets and so paths just make more sense then others.

I love being in another setting so I try to make time for running in my traveling schedule. It is part of exploring a place and getting the local feel. For big trips, I have even asked this thread for route advice. Thanks again for my California trip! Otherwise, I ask at the hotel front desk for recommendations. They always have an answer and sometimes some security advice, like “avoid the West side because there has been a lot of bears in that area recently”.

 

[jmasgat]

So I was away for Thanksgiving, but mostly just Grumpy and Dopey re: Marathon 2020 (short version: stupid me, didn't sign up, shut out, no travel pkgs, unresponsive charity, not going). But I gave myself an ***-kicking while out on my run this morning (still following my DopeyBadger plan) and decided to Let it Go. So in answer to the previous couple of QOTD, I offer this.....

I am grateful that Disney inspired me to take up running the year I turned 50, and that I am still running 12 years later.
I am grateful that I have run well enough to challenge myself to achieve running goals I wouldn't have thought possible.
I am grateful to live in an area where I have a multitude of roads to choose from for running routes and a Garmin that will let me stray off my usual running routes, yet keep me on track for the distance I may need to run.
I am grateful for the (leashed) dogs I run by---they always bring a smile to my face and give me a little boost of energy.
I am grateful for this forum. I am a person with a very limited friend set, none of whom run. It's nice to have a place to chat about running.

Finally, I am grateful to be writing this, sitting on my couch, dog next to me, with a post-run cocoa w/ whipped cream, with Liverpool up 2-0 on Bournemouth

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

 

[Professor_Cookie]

Last year I tried to keep things pretty mixed up and changing constantly, which meant a lot of driving to different trail heads and dealing with variations in snow conditions, and the occasional sitting at a trailhead debating if possibly injuring myself and freezing to death was worth it. So I wasted a lot of time. This winter I am focusing on pavement(with snow and ice to deal with anyway) to work on my speed. The route varies depending on what distance I am running and weather I want a climb involved or not. But there aren’t really a ton of options outside my door with mountains in all directions. I would like to get myself back to my middling paces I ran at sea level what would mean that hypothetically my sea level pace should be up.

 

[sky13]

ATTQOTD: I have pretty much a standard routine.

Time-wise: On weekdays, once I get home from work, I get changed and head out the door (provided it's not too late, and it's not raining). Sometimes if it's raining I'll still get changed and just head to the gym instead. On weekends the vast majority of my runs are around 6-7pm give or take an hour or so, but on occasion (especially if I have plans in the afternoon/evening) I'll go for a run earlier in the day.

Place-wise: The vast majority of my outdoor running is in a nearby park. It's fantastic for running as the pathways are wide enough for walkers, runners, and cyclists; the paths are fairly even without slanting to one side; it's very well lit; and once I'm inside the park, there are no roads to cross, and the only traffic to look out for are cyclists and the occasional park maintenance golf cart. I usually do a 5k loop inside the park. Sometimes I'll vary my route within the park though!

If I'm doing longer distance then I do vary things by running around my neighbourhood. Sometimes it's fun and I get to see more of my neighbourhood, but it's also more stressful running around the neighbourhood than within the park. Multiple reasons, including narrower pavements and more cyclists so I need to pay a lot more attention to my surroundings; and having to cross roads and so depending on the type of road and crossing needing to either wait for traffic lights or watch out for oncoming traffic.