February 2020 Monthly Running Challenge

I have always heard about chocolate milk as the best for recovery. I will need to try just the syrup now though because when I buy actual chocolate milk, no one really drinks it but me after long runs and then it expires. So good idea.
I can't eat right after either, but I know I will feel so much better the rest of the day if I do. Usually have a homemade egg Mcmuffin with turkey sausage. Or a bagel.

@shanaber @mbaker566 Hugs to Hobbes and speed demon!

7 plus a bit miles today. Foggy and mid 50's. Felt good in capris and and tank and long t (which came off half way through). But of course its going to be cold again the rest of the week. @kgirlhart I too am just wanting to put on shorts and tank and go. This roller coaster weather makes it so difficult in figuring out what to wear sometimes.

hamsterwheel6 wrote: »

I have always heard about chocolate milk as the best for recovery. I will need to try just the syrup now though because when I buy actual chocolate milk, no one really drinks it but me after long runs and then it expires. So good idea.

Yeah, I get a container of Hersey Special Dark and use it as needed.

I forget the numbers, but the reason it works is because it just happens to hit the correct macros of Fat/Sugar/Protein for recovery. IME it really does work. After a long run I will drink 12-16 oz of it before I shower, and by the time I am out of the shower I am feeling much better.

Plus I find it yummy so there is that

Thanks everyone for the congratulations on my series finish!

@LoveyChar I think all the trails in the Memphis area count as easy or moderate - but I don’t know much about how different levels of technical trails are graded, so I looked it up and all I could find was this guide which is from South Africa. It says in other places that this same system is used worldwide though. Does anyone else know more about this?

https://www.wildrunner.co.za/useful-info/trail-grading

My husband and I always plan to walk a trail before running it, so we know what to expect. In the case of signing up for a destination race, most trail races will let you know on the website roughly what you are in for before you sign up, or you can generally find reviews of the park or trail system. There are trails which are wide and even groomed dirt roads, and then there’s the Barkley Marathons! In between the two extremes there’s a lot of different types of trail. In general if a race is on a mountain it’s probably going to be extreme, and if it’s in a suburban park it’s probably pretty mild.

Looking at this grading system, the 10k race I just ran had about half a mile of true single track where passing was impossible and you were brushing trees with your shoulders, a couple of long stretches which count as off-trail because they were through an ungroomed grassy meadow, a handful of minor places where you had to go up and down obstacles and ditches, two fallen trees which had to be either jumped or climbed over, a couple of places you needed to duck or get a branch in the face, and of course the long muddy intervals. I would say it was something between orange “moderately easy” and green “moderate challenging” mainly because of the mud - in the dry season it would count as
easy, with half a mile of knee deep mud it was challenging.

@quilteryoyo I felt for the poor kid with no shoes! He wasn’t there when we came back around so I assume he fished around in the mud until he found them. Every year people lose their shoes at that point, last year it was a college age lady. Last year when we were coming back there was a tall, very athletic looking younger man running with us - I can only assume he was recovering from an injury or something, since he was clearly faster than we were - and when we reached the second stretch of mud he said, “That’s it, I have had enough mud for one day, I am done.” And he wasn’t kidding, he stopped dead! Since you have to cross the mud to get back to the parking lot from there I assume he did eventually, but we never saw him again!

So, yesterday my husband and I gave ourselves a treat as a reward for finishing the Winter off-road series - we went to the park where the race was held and WALKED five miles! Just wandered around and enjoyed nature, no sweat involved. Since the tendons in my legs took a beating in the last race and were still sore, and last year I had a tendon blow out shortly after finishing this series, I felt like an extra rest day was a good idea. My goal is to get to Easter without an injury, after two years in a row of getting injured at the same time of year! I start ramping up in the spring and my old body just can’t take it apparently. So I am being extra cautious. We did run about a mile off and on to keep from getting chilly, but that was it.

Anyway we had a great time, saw many deer, many wild birds, and walked out as close to the edge of the Epic Bog as we could get without getting mud over the tops of our shoes. So I got a couple of photos. We always wish we could get some of this area during the race, because without a couple of hundred people cursing, struggling, and losing shoes, you can’t really appreciate how deep the mud is. But it’s still pretty chewed up and nasty looking! It’s also worth mentioning that you can’t avoid the mud by going off trail, since the edge of the trail is grassy tussocks in standing water, mixed with blackberry brambles!

My goal for February is 135 miles. I'm at 112 at the moment, with 30 more planned for February, but I'm not sure if I'll get all of those miles in.

I hope you have all been doing wonderfully, and running without pain or injury!

I posted this at the end of the January thread but I'll post here as well so you don't have to go back to read it:

A rather paltry January for me. It was my lowest mileage every for January, finishing at 63 miles. Reason for the lower total include continued recovery from my ultras last fall (at least that's the excuse I came up with), deciding not to run when my college son was home because it took time away from being with him, and a crazy work schedule that finally seems to be easing up.

I did run one race, the Securian Winter Half Marathon in St. Paul, MN. My intent when signing up was to actually train for it and get a PR, but that didn't happen and though I did beat my revised goal (based on my lame training) it was my slowest of the three HMs I've run, but I'm happy with it. My time was about 1:56:27. My PR is nearly 5 minutes faster than that.

February is going much better and I'm up to 112 miles already, including my first 50K of the year. I'll post about that in February's thread.

janejellyroll wrote: »

LoveyChar wrote: »

Signed up for another Marathon today, what is wrong with me!?!

You've got the marathon bug!

Definitely... Besides the days my kids were born, getting married and graduating from college, Marathon day was one of the best days of my life! I had so much fun in those hours on my feet...

I finally got back my running club! I did the 1 mile with a leader and a new runner. It was very slow, not really any faster than walking but i managed to run unbroken. We did 1.5 miles in the end! I was a bit wobbly at the end, and wheezy but manageable, but it feels so good to have done it.