Running Indoors

Saturday's run was a little treacherous.  When I arrived at Founders Park at 9:00, I quickly did some interesting dance steps as I realized that Fifth Street was covered in black ice.  Some hardier souls had already been out - Fred said he had to walk on the grass along the road near Satulah Ridge Road - but most of us waited an hour until the sun had risen higher.  It was still very slick in places, so I played a game of staying on sunny roads, round and round, up and down Main Street and that sunny stretch by the school; I ended up going seven miles.  So my recovery continues, and I suppose the difficult January weather can be considered a good thing if it forces me to hold back and not overdo.

Winter running can indeed be problematic, but I suppose runners in the Northeast would laugh if they were reading this now.  I remember running in the past in snow and wind this time of year, on the verge of frostbite, but nothing like what some endure.  Today was not much better than Saturday:  the roads were dry, but the temperature was 18 with a vicious wind dropping the wind-chill to below zero.  It doesn't make any sense to run in conditions like this.  So what do most sensible runners do?  They retire to the treadmill or the elliptical in the gym.  But I have never found a treadmill that seems long enough for me, and I do not like the constriction of an elliptical machine either.  So this morning I did something I had not done in a long time - I ran in circles around the perimeter of the gym.  Round and round, dodging the two or three walkers, and reversing directions every few laps.  As expected, my GPS watch did not work indoors (although I had had hopes), so I tried to calculate how far it was around the perimeter of the gym by counting laps and estimating that I was running 12-minute miles.  I figured that 20 laps was a mile.  I remembered that many years ago, after this building was constructed, someone had measured it and said it was 22 laps per mile, but Bill at the front desk said he understood it was 16.  So I did 66 laps, which was a good three miles by any reckoning, maybe more.  One of these days I will measure it with a wheel, but for now I am hoping I won't have to resort to gym running again this winter!