Monday 6 December 2010

It's colder in Scotland!

Everyone at work knows I run, so when they asked me today if I'd gone out running this weekend, they knew the answer would be yes, and I knew their response would be 'You're mad!'. But am I?

Before I went out running this evening, I found this audio, on the Run Britain Website, which is an interview with Steve Wall who coaches a running club up in the North East corner of Scotland. Obviously, running in the snow is the norm for them in the winter; in fact, he even says they had snow as early as August this year!













A lot of what he says is really interesting and also inspriring to get out there and have a go; if they didn't run in the snow, they couldn't run at all. He also makes a point though of the added benefits to your fitness of running in snowy and icy conditions; as anyone who has tried will know, a lot more muscles are impacted as a result of keeping your balance and your overall running style needs to adapt slightly too.  In the same way that cross-country is a great way to strengthen and improve your running for the spring, it seems so to is running in these conditions. Great! Working more muscles + running in freezing temeratures / burning more calories = more mince pies for Maggie!

So that is what got me out the door, to running club, in the -3 temperatures tonight!

Running was tough though. My Garmin registered 5.69 miles but my legs registered at least double that; the hills from yesterday had certainly taken their toll on me and I felt like I was dragging lead weights around on the bottom of my feet, rather than trainers.  Saying that, Pete ran with me and helped me keep the pace a little higher than I would have done on my own; pushing on at 8.54 minute miles until the last mile where a hill slowed me to a 9.08 average overall.

Not bad... but tomorrow is definitely going to be a well deserved rest day!

Distance: 5.69
Feeling: Tired... ZZZzzzzzzzz
Weather: very icy and cold.

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Thanks for reading... feel free to leave me a message. Maggiee x