Christmas Running

The beautiful festive season is here again!  I’ve been running still but mainly been heading to the gym to keep fitness up as temperatures plummet.  

However the other day I decided to suck it up and get out there.  If you are currently lacking that Christmas spirit I suggest you lace up your shoes and go for a run through suburbia, put a Christmas playlist on your iPod and look at the lights.  

I imagine there are a certain amount of people that are rolling thier eyes at the very mention of an ‘iPod’!  Seriously if you need a boost have a night-time Christmas run, either that or watch Home Alone. Both are pretty cool.

The Oncoming Darkness.

This will make me unpopular.

I love the winter, it’s my favourite season.  It means, Advent Calendars, snowboarding and the X Factor.  Yes I appreciate that some of those things (snowboarding) make me seem desperately uncool, but when it comes to running, I like the winter.

There’s something to running at night, the quietness and the stillness. I like it.  Yes, it’s more dangerous and I suppose there is the risk that temperatures drop so low that you nose might actually drop off, but, and here it is, I think I run faster at night.

The logic behind that last statement?  Well there isn’t one.  It’s more of a perception, no, no it’s just a load of rubbish.  

As the winter draws in, don’t give up on your training.  Get a hoody and some joggers and keep it going, because running loves you, even though you might not love it back.  

Plus, you know stay safe out there.

What a relief!

Finally managed to get out the door for a run today – first time in a fortnight. Obviously the weather hasn’t been great for running. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t usually put me off. I find something vaguely satisfying about finishing a run and discovering that the sweat in your hair has frozen on the way round. Makes me feel vaguely virtuous. No, the problem has been this winter bug that’s going around. I wouldn’t claim it was the flu. But I’ll dispute any accusation that it was man-flu!

After a dozen or more days without being able to pull on my trainers I was really beginning to miss it. There were plenty of cobwebs that needed blowing away. And you start to get the sense that all that hard-won fitness is beginning to ebb away.

So trundling around my stock 3.5 miler again tonight felt great. The run was slow, slow, slow. But never mind. Plenty of fun to be had running in the snow. And there was the added frisson of running after dark while trying to spot the remaining patches of ice. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good workout for the core and proprioception.

Now I’m looking forward to the traditional Boxing Day run, although it might be wise to scale back on the distance a little.

May I wish you all a happy holiday period. I hope you enjoy good food, good company, and a great time. And that you get the chance to take a turn or two around your favourite running routes.

Here’s hoping we all start 2011 with a spring in our steps.