Training

Early season training is always a challenge with the weather here in northern Colorado. If you're lucky enough to get a warm sunny day you have to wait until noon or so before it really warms up.

These are the conditions I'm running in now, this snow-covered road to the left will turn to mud in half an hour on a warm day. From my run at Horsetooth I can see Longs Peak covered in snow where I'll be running trails in just another 2 months.

If the weather is really bad there's always the bike, and I'm tempted to take it off the trainer and out of the living room, back to the garage where it lives most of the year, but I'm afraid I'll cause a blizzard by doing that. The trails are clear and drying out and I don't want to have to go through the whole ice-snow-mud-dust cycle again.

I walked hard for 10 miles this morning. I am still sore in the quads from my 4000' vertical run last week. I decided to take it easy and just walk. I kept a good pace and threw a little running in. It was so nice up at Horsetooth, the sun was shining and the ice is melting. The whole reservoir is almost free of ice.

I did my first sauna session today! I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a way to relax. I have never spent any serious time in a sauna before and I did 30 minutes today at 160 degrees. I drank a liter and a half of water while I was in there. I didn't really start to sweat until about ten minutes in, and the heat didn't ever feel oppressive.

I originally planned to do only 5 or 10 minutes to break in easy, but I felt comfortable and decided to stay in as long as I had water and felt okay. At 30 minutes I decided that would be good enough for my first time. When I got out I felt cold but not too bad. Driving home was the hard part, I felt so relaxed I wanted to sleep. I came home and ate something, rinsed off in the shwer, and got in bed. I took an hour nap and felt great afterwards.

I remembered to take some electrolytes in after the sauna session. As I spend more time in the sauna I'll have to bring something with me other than just water. I took some magnesium capsules, had some orange juice and we ate pizza tonight, so I got my salt replaced.

I wasn't looking forward to spending time in the sauna. I was more concerned about the time it takes to do that, when I could be running, eating or sleeping, but now I think I'm going to be addicted.