October 2018 Monthly Running Challenge

MobyCarp wrote: »

Home again, house put together, time to think about October goals. With all the deep thought of 3 minutes, I come up with:

Nominal Monthly Challenge Goal: 150 miles

Real Goals: Recover well from Wineglass. Avoid reinjury. Build volume only to the extent consistent with recovery and injury avoidance.

Monthly questions:

1) With holiday's coming up and the return of cooler or warmer weather. What's your stragedy mitigating the particular challenges you face these last few months of the year?

The challenge for October will be not to overdo things. There are a stack of races coming up that I'd like to run for various reasons, and I need to do so only when I'm physically capable of running hard without risking injury. That can be hard to discern. Holidays in general are not much of a food challenge for me; I live alone, control what goes into my kitchen, and am not shy about skipping holiday parties if that's what I need to do to maintain my weight. Colder weather is not a challenge for running. I already have the wardrobe, and I learned to run as the seasons progressed from August to December 2011.

2) pretend for a moment your 8, unless you really are dressing up, then dish.... What are you going to be for Halloween?

My 8 year old self would wear whatever costume Mom was willing to provide, in order to go door to door and get as much candy as possible. I don't even remember what those costumes were when I was a kid, but I remember the candy.

Now, I don't do costumes for Halloween because they're too much effort. I think it would be cool to have a good devil costume, or perhaps Ming the Merciless; but realistically, I thinks it's nicer to not have to go shopping for costumes or stuff to make costumes.

I will buy a small bag of some type of candy that I don't mind eating one fun sized package at a time over 2 or 3 months. I anticipate zero trick-or-treaters, same as recent years; but I want to have something in case I get a handful of them.

This reminds me that I've been meaning to ask about running in cold weather gear - I'm not as concerned about keeping warm as I am about falling (or being so tense about falling that I might as well have fallen). Have you ever run in winter spikes (I've seen these recommended a few times)? Have you had any issues with your knees/legs/hips running with them? What do you do if you have them but don't need them? Need them but don't have them? Do outdoor races usually de-ice the course? Do you use your normal shoes or are there better winter shoes?

It's 520am. Have been awake for an hr. It's dark and wet outside. Time for 6k I think.

One thing I hate about daylight saving, it's just getting light at 530 and we have to change the clocks. Sigh.

This month I've got two races scheduled so I should get in 50km at least Setting the goal at 100km again.

1001-11k total-11k, goal-100k

A nice long-ish run to kick off the month. Didn't feel a thing besides getting kinda hungry. It's nice to be at a place where I can run double digits at any time as a regular thing.

Upcoming races:
20181014 Beijing Women's Half Marathon (maybe)
20181027 Mogan Ultra 30k
20181118 Shanghai Marathon (maybe)

Monthly questions:

1) I no longer find cold weather a problem, and where I usually live, daylight time is not either... In Ireland, the sun comes up at 7am these days, making it a bit of a challenge to find time to run in the mornings. Running in the evenings is even worse, since it interfers with eating and all kinds of life. Meh.

Holidays don't really crank up in China until Jan. and Feb., and then all bets are off. Who doesn't have a benevolent grandmother who insists on feeding you until you can't get up from your seat?

2) Like @MobyCarp I don't remember what I was when I was 8. The trick-or-treating and the resulting candy though. My best year was probably the year I was 11, and deemed old enough to be wandering around with my friends until nearly 9pm. We made a last round of the neighbourhood after all the littler kids had gone home, told people we were the last ones, and most just dumped us everything they had left. I think the hoard lasted until the next Easter or something.

If I were to do Halloween this year (I'm not, we don't have it in China ), I'd be a bear. I have a giant bear head sitting around, and would really like to use it.

@rheddmobile That looks awesome.

Welcome to all the new people and familiar faces just getting back into it! @20hughsab @RHWilgus3403 @wegt2go @SarahRuth42 @smaloch1852 @amirahdaboss @SolanineNightshade @Tldnew16 and whoever else I might have missed.

@hanlonsk Great to have you back. That sounds really tough, hope the running helps keep you sane!

MegaMooseEsq wrote: »

MobyCarp wrote: »

Home again, house put together, time to think about October goals. With all the deep thought of 3 minutes, I come up with:

Nominal Monthly Challenge Goal: 150 miles

Real Goals: Recover well from Wineglass. Avoid reinjury. Build volume only to the extent consistent with recovery and injury avoidance.

Monthly questions:

1) With holiday's coming up and the return of cooler or warmer weather. What's your stragedy mitigating the particular challenges you face these last few months of the year?

The challenge for October will be not to overdo things. There are a stack of races coming up that I'd like to run for various reasons, and I need to do so only when I'm physically capable of running hard without risking injury. That can be hard to discern. Holidays in general are not much of a food challenge for me; I live alone, control what goes into my kitchen, and am not shy about skipping holiday parties if that's what I need to do to maintain my weight. Colder weather is not a challenge for running. I already have the wardrobe, and I learned to run as the seasons progressed from August to December 2011.

2) pretend for a moment your 8, unless you really are dressing up, then dish.... What are you going to be for Halloween?

My 8 year old self would wear whatever costume Mom was willing to provide, in order to go door to door and get as much candy as possible. I don't even remember what those costumes were when I was a kid, but I remember the candy.

Now, I don't do costumes for Halloween because they're too much effort. I think it would be cool to have a good devil costume, or perhaps Ming the Merciless; but realistically, I thinks it's nicer to not have to go shopping for costumes or stuff to make costumes.

I will buy a small bag of some type of candy that I don't mind eating one fun sized package at a time over 2 or 3 months. I anticipate zero trick-or-treaters, same as recent years; but I want to have something in case I get a handful of them.

This reminds me that I've been meaning to ask about running in cold weather gear - I'm not as concerned about keeping warm as I am about falling (or being so tense about falling that I might as well have fallen). Have you ever run in winter spikes (I've seen these recommended a few times)? Have you had any issues with your knees/legs/hips running with them? What do you do if you have them but don't need them? Need them but don't have them? Do outdoor races usually de-ice the course? Do you use your normal shoes or are there better winter shoes?

We don't get much snow here but we did get ice for several weeks off and on. When it was icy I ran in my Brooks Cascadias which were very safe feeling unless it was straight up glare ice - something like yak trax might have helped, but then you have to run in yak trax on the NOT icy parts too, so it just seemed the better part of valor to skip the one or two really bad days.

The race I ran in February did not de-ice, and the four bridges were very slick. Most runners crossed single file holding on to the side of the bridge. My husband and I had run that course before and knew that on the bridges, the packed ice closest to the rail was the slickest part, whereas the deeper unpacked snow in the middle was fine to run in as long as you didn't push off to the rear too much - you have to sort of stomp. So that's what we did, stomped by a whole bunch of seasoned runners and got a PR.

nothing yet

rheddmobile wrote: »

MegaMooseEsq wrote: »

MobyCarp wrote: »

Home again, house put together, time to think about October goals. With all the deep thought of 3 minutes, I come up with:

Nominal Monthly Challenge Goal: 150 miles

Real Goals: Recover well from Wineglass. Avoid reinjury. Build volume only to the extent consistent with recovery and injury avoidance.

Monthly questions:

1) With holiday's coming up and the return of cooler or warmer weather. What's your stragedy mitigating the particular challenges you face these last few months of the year?

The challenge for October will be not to overdo things. There are a stack of races coming up that I'd like to run for various reasons, and I need to do so only when I'm physically capable of running hard without risking injury. That can be hard to discern. Holidays in general are not much of a food challenge for me; I live alone, control what goes into my kitchen, and am not shy about skipping holiday parties if that's what I need to do to maintain my weight. Colder weather is not a challenge for running. I already have the wardrobe, and I learned to run as the seasons progressed from August to December 2011.

2) pretend for a moment your 8, unless you really are dressing up, then dish.... What are you going to be for Halloween?

My 8 year old self would wear whatever costume Mom was willing to provide, in order to go door to door and get as much candy as possible. I don't even remember what those costumes were when I was a kid, but I remember the candy.

Now, I don't do costumes for Halloween because they're too much effort. I think it would be cool to have a good devil costume, or perhaps Ming the Merciless; but realistically, I thinks it's nicer to not have to go shopping for costumes or stuff to make costumes.

I will buy a small bag of some type of candy that I don't mind eating one fun sized package at a time over 2 or 3 months. I anticipate zero trick-or-treaters, same as recent years; but I want to have something in case I get a handful of them.

This reminds me that I've been meaning to ask about running in cold weather gear - I'm not as concerned about keeping warm as I am about falling (or being so tense about falling that I might as well have fallen). Have you ever run in winter spikes (I've seen these recommended a few times)? Have you had any issues with your knees/legs/hips running with them? What do you do if you have them but don't need them? Need them but don't have them? Do outdoor races usually de-ice the course? Do you use your normal shoes or are there better winter shoes?

We don't get much snow here but we did get ice for several weeks off and on. When it was icy I ran in my Brooks Cascadias which were very safe feeling unless it was straight up glare ice - something like yak trax might have helped, but then you have to run in yak trax on the NOT icy parts too, so it just seemed the better part of valor to skip the one or two really bad days.

The race I ran in February did not de-ice, and the four bridges were very slick. Most runners crossed single file holding on to the side of the bridge. My husband and I had run that course before and knew that on the bridges, the packed ice closest to the rail was the slickest part, whereas the deeper unpacked snow in the middle was fine to run in as long as you didn't push off to the rear too much - you have to sort of stomp. So that's what we did, stomped by a whole bunch of seasoned runners and got a PR.

I bought yak trak three years ago, and have yet to need them. So there is that