Running in a Microclimate

This weekend was an interesting run. The temperature when I got up was about 17 degrees, but the wind chill was registering it as more like 9. That is not awesome, but it’s not easy to tell how the wind chill is going to affect you when you’re running and I can say that I didn’t much notice the wind this time. It was a nice sunny day and conditions were such that sidewalks were mainly clear of ice except for random spots where people hadn’t shoveled enough. At FitCorp they told us that today was to be a 14.68 mile run – this was in opposition to the Liver Team schedule that had us doing 12 miles, which was much more in line with the training I’ve been doing. Jumping from 10.5 one week to nearly 15 the next wasn’t a great idea and my mid-week runs had only prepared me for the step to 12. Several other people mentioned the change in distance and several of us decided to only do the 12.

Somewhere between the car and the gym I had lost my tight running hat that makes me look a bit like a henchmen for a James Bond villain so I ended up wearing my Harpoon baseball hat instead. I felt pretty unsure about this as it doesn’t cover my ears and I knew they’d be quite cold in the 16-degree weather, but I didn’t have much choice. We started off and straight out in front of the State House we cross the brick line in the sidewalk that is the Freedom Trail, which is a line that connects important historical sites in the city, but today it was also effective at concealing a random ice chunk that was loose on the sidewalk. I hit the chunk of ice right on and turned my left ankle on it which hurt like a mother. Turning an ankle is the kind of thing that can end your run abruptly, but fortunately this time it just hurt and I could run through it, so I ran on down the hill.

Runners become very aware of climate on a micro level; we try to keep in mind which side of the street will be shady or on which part of a loop the wind will be at our backs. We run along the North side of Beacon Street the whole time as it’s more likely to keep us in the sunlight and out of the shade of the buildings on the south side of the street (which incidentally have lower property values because of being in the shade). I got to about Dartmouth Street when I realized that my right ear was ice cold while my left ear was in the sun and much warmer. Somehow though, the cold ear and the turned ankle didn’t hamper me at all, I kept right on to Cleveland Circle at a good pace and with nothing to really complain about. I downed a goo pack (remind me to write more about them in another posting) at the 3 mile mark and its extra energy boost kept me going almost all the way back to the gym.

The intended 15-mile course took us down Beacon Street like normal and out to Cleveland Circle, where we were to head off the course and do a long loop around Boston College and then back in to FitCorp the way we had come. They gave this nice little had drawn map that was not at all to scale to tell us what the course was, and once I got Cleveland Circle I checked it to see where 6 miles which was where I wanted to turn around. 6 miles was marked as being next to “BC Dorms”. Now, there’s a lot of BC Dorms and I had now way of knowing which one to turn. Just across Cleveland Circle is the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and when I got to there I was struck by how tranquil and still it was, and so rather than just run to some arbitrary point and turn around I decided to loop around the reservoir instead. It was great, very quiet, not much traffic around and once I got about halfway I could see the tall buildings of downtown Boston in the distance – a sight that is both exciting and disheartening. I was impressed that the path along the reservoir was plowed most of the way around, and where it wasn’t I could run on the sidewalk in Evergreen Cemetery. The only places that I came across ice were the areas of the sidewalk that were at times in the shadow of the thin lines of trees spaced out along the road. I’m always impressed that the difference between an icy and a dry surface is defined by such vague line as the shadow of leafless trees.

Something was working right in my head for this run and I didn’t have to spend much time keeping myself psyched up and so the remainder of the trip went on without incident. I got back to the gym ahead of the runners doing the 15 mile loop and it felt really weird that all of these people who are stronger, faster runners came in after me, but we all have to run our own race. They ran what they needed to do and so did I. In the end I did only 11.5 miles, and I wish I had known at the time so I could’ve worked in another half mile, but I’m still happy with my run.

Afterwards during stretching I had some fun conversations with the other runners and I wanted to mention how utterly insane I think Mara is. Every Saturday she runs the 2 miles from her house to the gym before whatever our long run is, and then runs home afterwards. So Saturday she ran 2 miles to the gym, 12 miles on the course, and then 2 miles home. That’s 16 miles on what’s meant to be a 12-14 mile day! She says she does it because it’s easier than parking.

Man, runners just aren’t right are they?