Shorts? Man you are crazy! It was a balmy 30 when I went out today, but no shorts for me, still too cold for this old fart to run in them! Hope the leg gets better for you ccrunner.

Tried to run on the trails today. Pretty tough sleddin'. About 4 inches of packed snow on the trail with lots of divots from horses hooves. Sorta like running on hard sand that has some give to it. Made it about 2 miles then gave up and went 2 more on the road. How you guys run the trails in these conditions is beyond me.

A heat wave today, 40 degrees when I went out at 5:30!! I agree with you Gymshoes, I stay off the horse trails when there is more than a couple inches of snow on the ground, heck some times the bike trails are hard enough to run on in the snow!

With temperatures in the high 30's today, I don't see running outside to be an issue at all. It's about perfect for Ohio in January.

ccrunner609 wrote: This sucks........been running in freezing cold for weeks and the leg is completely shot. Now I cant run at all.

What ya think brought this on? You've been running every day (practically) for years. It's not like you took a long break and let yourself get fat.

I know how you are 609, you will try running again too soon. On you next run try adding some backward strides to the warm up and cool down. For whatever reason, it helped me (some) with my shin pain, years past.

Take some time off ccrunner before you are out of commission for a lonnng time!

said_aouita wrote:

ccrunner609 wrote: This sucks........been running in freezing cold for weeks and the leg is completely shot. Now I cant run at all.

I know how you are 609, you will try running again too soon. On you next run try adding some backward strides to the warm up and cool down. For whatever reason, it helped me (some) with my shin pain, years past.

ccrunner609 wrote: ^^^I Even though I was just thinking about running tommorow.

I told ya. Ya goof ball, you need time off........when you go run tomorrow try the backward strides (I wanna hear if it helps ya or not) and DO NOT take ibuprofen or something to "hide" the discomfort.

TODAY

ccrunner609 wrote: got 10 minutes in, didnt feel it for the first 3 minutes. THen the next 7 were painful.

Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

Great run this morning. Was out before 8am, still a tad foggy. Awesome stuff!

I had my most demoralizing run of my career today. I'm a very conservative runner going down hills and on ice during practice. I simply don't want to fall and injure myself. Well, our coach took us to run out on a bikepath that was completely covered with ice. Guys started their run and the girls started about 3 minutes later. It was simply too slippery for me and I fell way behind my teammates. I said to myself "screw this, its not worth it" but ended up getting passed by my coach (a female) and one of our top female runners... I was so embarassed...lol oh well, I'll make up for it on Mondays workout

Yeah I wouldn't worry or be embarrassed about it either give. Sounds like you were smart about not risking injury on the ice! Are you not running track with the track club?

You'd be more embarrassed if you severely strained something and were out part of track season.

Better safe then sorry.

Thanks for the support. I don't feel quite as bad now, haha.

Anyways, yes, I'm running for the track club, but the distance part of it (cross country runners) is separate from the actual track club. We have two indoor meets, one next weekend, and then at All-Ohio. Both are at BG. Then we are allowed to run up to 3 outdoor meets. If we race more than 3 we have to pay our own expenses.

I personally like not having varsity track. We still meet to run 4 days a week and do the workouts our head XC coach gives us, but we don't have very many meets and we can't run at championship meets like the MAC. I am still able to train and compete and I also have time to relax and focus on schoolwork by not having to race every single weekend.

Downsides to not having varsity track is that it keeps a lot of talented runners from coming here for cross country. The NCAA allows universities to give up to 5 full scholarships to teams without varsity track, but because we fully fund our football and hockey teams, the university had to cut back on other sports and we only get 2.5 scholaraships. No way we can compete with 2.5 scholarships. Anyways, another downside to not having varsity track is the motivation level isn't as high for the track season. I'm still working hard, but my motivational level isn't anywhere near it was for cross.

Anyways, I came to BG for many reasons other than running. Running also factored into my decision as well. I feel I can achieve the same results individually whether I ran at BG, Dayton, OSU, Malone, ect. In my opinion it doesn't matter where you run, but how hard you work.

Got in a nice 8 mile run with the dog today, 45, windy and rainy when we went out, but I'll take that for January. Some idiot ran the dog and I off the bike path with his SUV in a section where the path was real close to the road. He actually drove right at us unto the path and we had to bail to avoid getting hit. I was not a happy camper :@ and made sure he knew it by giving him half the peace sign and a few choice words, but he was going so fast I doubt he saw my response.

give thanks for the explanation on how the BG track club works, I didn't realize the distance guys ran separately from everyone else.

Stationrun, sorry about your experience today.................I'm sure you run the trails to AVOID that kind of stuff. I ran today with a group of runners training for a spring 1/2 marathon. We get together on Sundays mainly for the encouragement and support. The run is secondary. I only went three miles but that's ok as we are trying to hang with new runners and bring them up to a distance they can comfortably handle. Some go 3, some go 6, and eventually, we will bump those miles up to get ready for the 1/2. Lotsa fun out in the rain.

CC, so what are you saying exactly? Are you basically saying track has little impact on cross? It sounded like you were advizing me to do something by starting your post with "if."

ccrunner609 wrote: In a 12 month cycle where you have to put your body through 2 peak phases means that you also have 2 phases of rebuilding. A runner can spend 4-8 weeks preparing for one race in the fall and one in the spring to peak for, they then spend 3-6 weeks of down time or junk running recouping from that peak.

Add that up and you have aot of time ignoring the development of long term physiological training required to really change your running. When you have one season you can have alot more time spent in each phase of training.

Sorry if I'm branching off here....since we are talking about the peaking and only possibly having two phases in a year. (This idea is what almost all schools follow because of the two sports of XC and track.)

This topic got me thinking, my addition below is to past rants with 609....sorry everyone.

Schul and his "nutty" workouts, that worked best for developing long term, as in years and years, not twice a year. Schul prepared for one race, Tokyo. He beat himself up for a long time, gradually getting faster.

Why I still think it has benefits, geez it's nearly 3am.
A kid could get silly and get better quick, if they were willing to take enough Advil. (cough cough)
Maybe even A kid who has not developed much and is in his final year wants to take a chance.
I think the key with Schul's training is the total time of the workout. You keep your heart rate elevated for an extended period of time, while training at a pace slightly faster then race pace, yet still not reaching lactic because of the walking and multiple sets.

One of these days I'm going to get up the nerves to e-mail Rich Davis at Dayton....he knows everything.

ccrunner glad you had no stress fracture.

I started running again on Monday after taking a long time off. And I agree about the footprints in the snow I always love seeing that I was the first one to run somewhere.

Yea, it was cold today. After gettin' spoiled for those few days...mid teens felt extra cold.

I've ran on the indoor track last two days. Indoor meet today.

Stunk it up in the mile. 4:40. Last year I ran 4:38 at this time, so my 4:40 converts to a 4:38. Didn't feel tired after race, just couldn't change gears. Ran in lane 2 for 6 laps. Ran 4:44 unpushed in DMR. I feel like I can run that pace all day, but couldn't go any faster today. I'll be running 5k at All-Ohio and plan on going sub 15:30.

Yeah, I think I'm done playing around with the mile. I really wanted to run it my senior year because it was the glamor event, but I'm going to stick to when I excel at. Running the mile twice today allowed me to work on my speed. I'm excited for the 5k at All-Ohio.

I only get 4 more meets to compete in, so I don't think I'll be doing the mile. Next indoor meet is All-Ohio and then I got 3 outdoor meets and I'm done.

Oooooh geez. A Graham Senior runner is gettin nutty. Tried his first "Schul" workout this evening.

(Wish me luck) hee-hee.

My knee has gotten so sore from slipping in the mud 2 weeks ago that I'm not able to run right now, which really sucks . I did about 20 minutes on the bike and 10 minutes on a rowing machine that my wife found a while ago in someones garbage. Much rather be running but when I tried yesterday I realized that I was really making it worse trying to run through the injury so I bit the bullet and cross-trained today and probably will do so tomorrow as well.

cross training is a great substitute, don't worry about it. According to Jack Daniels, you can take 5 days completely off without losing any fitness and you aren't taking 5 days off because you are cross training.