In less than a month, winter will officially be upon us, and already we are being subjected to crappy weather and a severe lack of daylight in good ol' Central Illinois. Distance runners like me have two choices: (1) suck it up and run outside in the freezing cold and pitch black dark, or (2) act like wusses and run in the temperature-controlled and well-lit indoors on treadmills and tracks.
I'm a wuss and I'm proud of it.
It's not that I don't like running in the cold, but the fact that cold is often accompanied by rain, snow, sleet, ice, and a ridiculous amount of wind. I HATE WIND! (The fact that I typed that in all caps, bold and italics should adequately reflect my level of hatred for strong wind.) So in order to avoid the adverse conditions of the upper Midwestern winter, I find myself running indoors a lot these days.
I'm currently in training for the Walt Disney World Goofy Challenge in January. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's a half-marathon on Saturday followed by a full marathon on Sunday... That's right: over 39 miles in 2 days. For fun! My good friend, marathon training buddy, and Bad Axe Pigeon bandmate, Kristi is also engaging in this crazy endeavor with me. Thank goodness for that, because I'm not sure I could get through the long runs without her.
Just this morning, we did a 16-mile long run on an indoor track. On this particular track, that was 120 laps. There's no feeling quite like being on a 120-lap run, feeling like you've already run 75, and looking at the lap counter on your watch and seeing you've only run 10. Even with a great running buddy, an indoor long run can be mentally fatiguing. People often ask us how we do it.
How do we combat the mental fatigue when running around in circles for hours and hours?
Well, it's not easy, but we've found that a clinically-proven combination of guided imagery and creative visualization really helps.
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| Will run for food/beverages. Mmmmm... falafel. |
Peace. Love. Train.
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