By David Freeze
Running or Not in the Snow! Winter Flight a Week Away.
A recent article was in Runner’s World entitled, “You don’t need to run outside in the snow, I promise!” A woman wrote this after her area received a foot of snow. She gave all the reasons, which included things like you can’t run as fast, you’ll have to shorten your stride, the cold air could burn your lungs. She said those who have to run in the snow will have muscles get stiff and they have to worry more about maintaining balance than normal.
For her final reason, one which doesn’t make sense to me, she said, “And please don’t wear shorts!”
Sure, she had some good points, but as I have written a few times over the last 20 years, I don’t want to miss those snowy days unless it is physically unsafe. We get so little snow here that I see those days as a very special experience. The snow was predicted to arrive about 4am last Saturday and it was expected to be heavy. For certain, the cold air was already in place with the temperature in the low 20s.
Up at 3am, I looked out to see that the wind was light, and the first flakes were falling gently. I got dressed quickly, with a weather resistant jacket, toboggan and shorts. I wanted this run more than most. I had five miles in mind and planned to run sideways to the increasing wind.
On the road finally, I felt good footing with the granular snow. I never slipped, stayed sideways to the wind and got my five miles plus. Yes, I was a little cold but just marginally so. A must-have run, and since I don’t have a treadmill and our Y is closed on Sunday, I was going to be OK if the forecast was right with the predicted 5-10 inches. Running in deep granular snow is impossible and Sunday would probably be a rest day, one that I was fine with.
My final thought looks back at the author who got a sports medicine MD to verify that running in the cold and snow is harder than usual. My 45 years of running while never missing a snowfall day means plenty to me, and you can bet that as long as I can, I won’t intentionally miss one.
I did end up with a rest day on Sunday but had long walks on Monday and Tuesday while the roads were cleared. It was back to running on the road on Wednesday morning with the air temperature between 29-31 degrees. There were some slippery spots and one very short walk because of it. One foot slipping on ice while running means little, but two feet slipping back to back likely means a hard body jarring fall on pavement.
Winter Flight is next Sunday, February 15th and at this point, two intriguing male runners are coming to the race. Jordan Schilit is author of “In the Long Run” Jordan has been running since elementary school and graduated from high school in Florida as one of the top distance runners in the U.S. He was part of Haverford s USTFCCCA Scholar Team of the Year and holds track PRs ranked in the top-5 All-Time in Division III, including his school record at 5,000m (13:59.21).
34-year-old Josh Izewski finished eighth in the U.S. Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials at Gainesville, Fla. in a sparkling time of 2:11.09. By year’s end, he was ranked 13th overall on the Track and Field News marathon list.
The numbers were even better for the half-marathon. Izewski, who competes for Zap Endurance, ran a headline-grabbing time of 63:22 in the Houston Half-Marathon (18th overall) to finish ninth in the year-end United States rankings. The only other American-born runner to double in the full and the half was Reed Fischer. “It’s always interesting to see stuff like that, with all the runners who have run so well all year,” Izewski said in a telephone conversation. “To be able to finish and be ranked like that. . .it’s special.”
The 43rd Annual Forum Fitness Winter Flight 8K, 5K and Fun Run are ready to roll at Catawba College on Sunday and the forecast looks good. Racing starts at 1:30pm. There is a race to run or walk for everyone. The historic 8K course has just been recertified and the most exciting race day in Salisbury and Rowan is just ahead. All proceeds go to Rowan Helping Ministries. Look for more information on the race and how to register at www.salisburyrowanrunners.org. Call me at 704-310-6741.
