"You should keep a runner's diary"... say the running magazines.
We've all bought them, read them, bought the new one, read the new one, and perhaps have tried to think what they'd changed between the two...?
Was it the skinny chick on the front cover? Did she look happier last month? Is that even possible? More sweaty perhaps? Maybe even just glowing? Maybe she had different coloured hair-that-wasn't-sticking-to-her-neck?
Come to think of it, it must be pretty difficult coming up with new ways to motivate the runner, month in, year out, when Nike summed up almost all the best advice with "Just Do It".
But... there remain good and valid reasons for keeping some kind of a record. The first, is that you'll never believe how fit you once became (or have yet to become) when you're looking at it from a distance.
Even more importantly though, is you can define the purpose of all that running kit accumulating in random drawers and boxes under beds, and perhaps even get rid of some. With every run you chose your weapons of choice based on temperature, precipitation, wind, distance, effort, terrain; and you either make the right choices, or you find you could have made better ones.
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| Gore LS top (too hot), Adidas Clima tights (too hot), Hilly gloves (too hot). Thank god I didn't take a Buff |
A few years ago I started making notes of what I wore, in which conditions, and what felt good or bad. I was staggered by the results, since it made over half my running gear redundant. Most stuff I wore because I had it, and I discovered that despite owning four (or five?) windproof running jackets they invariably make me too hot, unless it's slutting down with rain, getting close to freezing, and/or I'm out for more than an hour.
This evening I ignored my own advice and rushed out the house in a pair of running tights. Yet unlike the last three evenings there was no frost, no wind, and no dawn of a nuclear winter.
Bugger.
Bugger.
Within just a couple of miles I was sleeves up, gloves off, zip down to navel, and still I can't remember ever being so uncomfortably warm in an English winter.
I guess I'm not going to be on the cover of any running magazines this month...
Tonight's run: 6miles, 47:37mins, 6 degrees C, dry, no wind.
Janathon so far: 17 days, 165miles, 8 whole pounds in weight (mostly perspiration)
That made me laugh - I went out the other day "dressed up to the nines" with glove, jacket, long sleeved top etc and by the end of it the gloves were in the jacket pockets and the jacket was tied round my waist & the sleeves slammed up to my elbows.
ReplyDeleteI've fiddled and faffed with lots of combinations, and it's the mutant clothes that get the most use: the ankle part of old sock cut off and used as knuckle warmers when it's too warm for gloves, a long sleeved shirt with the sleeves cut off "because it's got a really long zip". Nike and Adidas take note!
Deletefor me it often comes down to familiarity and length of service, in itself a good gauge. I get "why don't you throw that shirt/shorts/shoes/bag out, it blooding stinks, and you've got that new stuff!" Well, because that is the stench of something that just works...still run in the same shorts I ran my first marathon in (2004), the refuses-to-die Camelbak HAWG and a Patagonia base layer shirt that has never rubbed, does not pil and I bought in TK Maxx because I liked the colour and had no intention of running in it...but by christ do they ever stink...long pants are a distant memory though :-)
ReplyDeleteI remember throwing away my first running vest (still cotton) after almost five years of use. Black had become light grey, all the seams were fluffed and fraying, and the material (where it hadn't disappeared) was almost see-through. I was gutted, it was just getting comfy.
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