Snow fell here today -- notice the palm trees in front!

A request from Running Buddy reader KN came in this week:

“You need to talk about running when it is cold out.  Once the warm days are done I have a problem going outside and running.  I don’t like not being able to sweat and getting all itchy…..”

On the occasion of the coldest day this winter in the Bay Area (it dropped into the 30s last night and the Marin mountaintops even received a rare dusting of snow), I thought today would be a good opportunity to answer the question: How do you force yourself outside to run in conditions only a polar bear could love?

There are plenty of practical tips out there for cold-running safety, which you can find here.  But rarely do these articles address the number one issue: getting out the door in the first place.  So, in no particular order, here are six tips to help turn you from Brr-some Billy into Toasty Tom (or, from Frigid Frieda into Balmy Betty):

1. Don’t run outside. This one might seem obvious, but it’s a great tip.  If you don’t want to run outside, run at your gym.  Or on a treadmill in your house, if you’re lucky enough to have one.  Trust me, I hate stationary running as much as the next guy, but there’s something liberating about running in a tank top and shorts while the poor souls outside trudge by your gym in their hats, boots, and scarves.   If you don’t listen to music when you run outside (and I don’t), I certainly recommend doing so inside.  People-watching in your gym is only entertaining for so long – after a while, the silent 24-hour news channels on the TVs hanging 30-feet away and the guy in the corner with the weird dumbbell technique get old.  Bring your iPod!
2. 

   Run with me!

   Bring your dog. Ninety percent of the discomfort of running in the cold comes from your brain constantly thinking about the fact that it’s cold, not the actual fact that it’s cold outside. Bringing your dog with you takes your mind off the temperature.  Who can’t resist laughing at Fido when he bounds a few feet ahead of you, slides into the snow, and then turns around and looks at you with a newly snowed-on Santa’s beard?

3. Run with others. “But Phil, I don’t have a dog!”  Okay, it’s a lame excuse, but I’ll accept it just this once.  Perhaps you don’t actually have a dog.  Then find a person!  While your best running buddy might not be keen to dive headfirst into the fluffy stuff and show off his new Santa’s Beard, he’ll be the perfect conversation partner, doing a great job of keeping your mind off how cold it is.
4. Avoid running when it’s snowing out. While running through snow on the ground can be fun (though you need to be careful when doing so), running while it’s actually snowing out isn’t the best idea. The situation that actually makes running in the cold noticeably uncomfortable is being wet while doing so, and falling snow melts on your hat and clothes while you’re running. This helps to ensure you’re always encased in wet clothing.  Not only is this uncomfortable, but it can be dangerous.  If you’re running outside in cold weather and get too wet, you’re at risk for hypothermia and should get inside as quickly as possible, and follow these hypothermia safety tips.
5. Don’t wear clothing that is too heavy. Instinctively, when we hear it’s cold outside, we know we have to bundle up, piling layer upon layer to keep our body heat inside.  When you’re running, this is only partially true.  Yes, you need to keep as much of your skin and head surface covered as possible to keep your warmth inside.  But as you run, and especially when you’re running, your body does an incredibly efficient job of generating body heat.  So much so, that too many extra layers can cause you to sweat excessively, which makes you wet, and therefore cold, as we pointed out in Tip 4.  So while it may be counterintuitive to do so, staying warm while running in cold weather actually means wearing fewer and lighter layers.  That doesn’t mean you should head out into 25-degree weather with nothing but a long-sleeve t-shirt to cover your top, but you should make sure that you have a breathable inner layer, like a Dri-Fit shirt that will wick sweat away from your body, along with a weather-resistant outer shell that will keep the biting cold wind and any precipitation out.  It may take a few tries with a few different options in your running wardrobe, but you will find the right fit!
6. Move. Okay, this might be a cop-out tip, but I followed it, and it’s been working wonders!  It did drop into the 30s here last evening, but all winter long our high temperature only occasionally fails to reach 50 degrees, and when the sun is out, it’s positively delightful.  If frequent Abominable Snowman sightings during your daily run are not your cup of tea, move south!  The extra doses of vitamin D from the surplus days of sunshine will also be a boost to your spirits, helping to fight against Seasonal Affective Disorder.

With these five tips, you should have a new arsenal of motivation to get your butt out the door when all you want to do is curl up inside by the fireplace and take a nap.  What are some of your favorite techniques for motivating yourself to run when it’s cold out?

Snow photo by the Marin Independent Journal.  Puppy photo by jcptalbot.

This is the third article in a series describing my first ever running injury in 20 years, how I’ve dealt with it heretofore, and my path to recovery.

My first few trips to see my physical therapist Nicole were a treat for my inquiring mind.  The human body is an amazing machine.  In fact, it is miraculous. In my first few visits I learned more from Nicole about biomechanics than I had in my entire life up to that point.  The fact that the solution to my knee and hamstring problem lay somewhere between my hips and my rear end was illuminating, to say the least.

Nicole earned a clinical doctorate in physical therapy from USC and has done extensive post-graduate research on knee issues just like mine.  So needless to say I was delighted when I discovered that my exact problem was something she’s been extensively studying for the last several years.

Here’s how she laid it out for me: for a long time (almost 20 years, in fact), because of my natural running form, I was able to stay injury-free save for the occasional ache, pain, or shin splint.  That changed on April 4 when I went on the run I described in the Marin Headlands.  Specifically, toward the end of the run, I ran an extremely steep downhill grade into a strikingly beautiful coastal area of the Headlands known as Pirate’s Cove.  I was at the edge of losing control, and each footfall was high impact.  This lasted for somewhere between 300 and 400 yards.

I had weak hip stabilizer muscles because, well, I hadn’t even known what hip stabilizer muscles were, much less devised a strategy for strengthening them.  The hip stabilizers, through the miraculous web of fiber, tendons, bone and muscle between them and the knee, actually help, when strong, to stabilize your knees and prevent them from buckling inwards.  Under normal circumstances, I likely would have been okay, but if you combine the steep terrain, the lack of control while running down it, and the fact that I was no longer 18 years old, what I had was the perfect recipe for an MCL (medial collateral ligament) tear.

The window into the weakness of my hip stabilizers opened up an entirely new interest for me in core strength in general, in which the hip stabilizers only play a part.  In fact, when I started running with the Endurables in September of ’08, each of our Wednesday workouts was done on the track but labeled as a “Core” workout because between each trip around the large polo fields at Golden Gate Park Rachel would have us doing any number of pain-inducing drills that worked on our cores.  At the time I didn’t investigate too closely as to exactly why our core strength was important, I just took her word for it .

Core strength is about overall fitness and ensuring that each part of your body is strong, but also, more importantly, it is about stabilizing the body under athletic stress. For me and my fellow Endurables runners, this was of utmost importance given that most of us were training for distances of either 50K (that’s 31 miles) or 50 miles. When your body is under that much stress, especially on the hilly and mountainous terrain here in the Bay Area and especially as you age, you need to eliminate as many potential causes of injury as possible.

So after my injury, Nicole prescribed a series of exercises that worked on my core and specifically targeted my hip stabilizers.  I became very familiar with what Nicole calls “clams,” otherwise known scientifically as a “Lying Hip Abduction” (insert all jokes about the kidnapping of less-than-truthful hips here, please). Clams look exactly like the mollusk they’re named after – you lay on your side with your knees bent, and rotate your knee up and down until it hurts so much in your butt you can’t do it anymore.  (Trust me, with a lot of these core exercises, you find out you have muscles in places you never knew you had them.)  Active.com has a great article on core strength with a 9-week core conditioning program that I recommend checking out.

So as a physical therapy patient, now I knew what had happened to me, and why it happened.  Following the prescription, however, which entailed a prohibition on running of any form and diligent performance of a whole new slew of exercises was another story.  I didn’t run at all for many days, until I did.   And historically, I’ve always been a one-track mind when it comes to exercise: running.  That means, I would run, and often times run a lot, but rarely stepped foot in a weight room, or did exercises that didn’t involve quickly putting one foot in front of the other.

These were lessons yet to be learned, and that saga would play out over the months of April and May.

Image by eOrthopod.  Photo by Ollie Crafoord.

That is the question confronting every runner every time he puts on his shoes and contemplates taking that first step.  It can be a tough question to answer, especially for the patience-challenged among us who just want to get out the door and go.

When I began my running career the idea of heading out for a run without first digesting your daily dose of forced flexibility was apostasy.  And I bought the conventional wisdom hook, line and sinker.  In fact, I believed in getting in an adequate amount of stretching so thoroughly that I would psych myself out of good performances in races if I was worried I hadn’t stretched enough.

Jillian is intense.

This summer I read Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels, who earned her fame by starring as one of the two tough-as-nails personal trainers on NBC’s The Biggest Loser.  I’m a big fan of Jillian’s fitness, health, and nutrition philosophies and I intend to write several future posts about points in her book.  I’m also a subscriber to her e-mail list.

Today she highlighted a great article about The Do’s and Don’ts of Stretching, and I think it’s worth a read, especially for those who have grown up in the always-stretch-before-you-do-any-physical-activity school.  As Jillian notes, “Stretching is key AFTER workouts. You shouldn’t stretch before working out — instead, you should warm up with cardio for 5 to 10 minutes, train, and then stretch. Stretching before workouts has been shown to decrease the intensity of your muscle contractions, which can actually impede your progress in the gym.”

Finally, here are her eight Stretching Do’s and Don’ts.  After seeing Nicole for my knee, I have learned quite a bit about Stretching Don’t #1: Don’t Bounce. This one is key, and I am a firm believer in it!

Stretching Do’s

• Do stay hydrated. Keeping your body properly hydrated is important for any exercise, including stretching. Drink plenty of fluids before you exercise, as this will allow your muscles to perform at their best and will increase the benefits of stretching.
• Do remember to breathe. While stretching, remember to breathe slowly and evenly. This facilitates oxygen delivery to your muscles.
• Do stretch evenly. Hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds. Be sure to stretch all your muscle groups — if you stretch the front of the thighs (quadriceps), make sure you stretch the back of the thighs (hamstrings). Also, stretch your whole body not just your legs — stretch your arms, back, neck, stomach, chest, etc.
• Do maintain good posture. Make sure your back is straight while stretching, or you risk injuring your back muscles.

Stretching Don’ts

• Don’t bounce! Use slow, even movements when stretching. Bouncing places too much stress on your muscles and joints and doesn’t help you stretch better.
• Don’t overstretch. Be patient, and never force your body to go where it doesn’t want to You will begin to see results if you keep at it.
• Don’t overextend your joints. Hyperextending (bending joints farther than they were meant to go) can cause injury and doesn’t help you in any way.

Finally — if it hurts, DON’T DO IT. Always listen to your body. If you’re stretching correctly, you should feel tension on the muscles, and possibly some slight discomfort. If you have any sharp or serious pain during a stretch or exercise, STOP, because you may do harm to your body. Remember, pain is your body’s way of telling you that something isn’t right. If you do have an injury, ask your doctor about exercise and stretching and follow his or her advice.

Yesterday I received a letter from my health insurance company informing me that after 20 visits to my physical therapist, no, they weren’t going to cover any more.  As to whether this prohibition applies to this year or forever, I’m not quite sure yet.  But it has me anxious.

In Monday’s post, The Anatomy of Injury Denial, I began detailing my 2009 personal fitness journey.  Today I’d like to pick up where I left off.

For two days after the long Saturday run in the Headlands, I ran at my gym on the treadmill, and made the following entries in my training log:

Monday, April 6, 2009
Distance: 3 miles
Notes: slight tenderness in right side of left knee/Achilles tendon/shin

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Distance: 4 miles
Notes: [knee] tendon was really weird today – hurt at first when running quickly, did some biking, some pushups, came back, didn’t feel quite normal but could still run 7.5 [treadmill pace] comfortably – odd.  hopefully goes away tomorrow

Well, it didn’t go away.  In fact, the next day was our Endurables weekly workout (then hosted by Rachel Rodriguez, proprietor of Aim Fitness, who by the way kicks butt).  Rachel is an excellent evaluator of running form, and after I made several pained attempts to circle the track around the polo fields at Golden Gate Park, she took a closer look at my left knee.  “Something not right is going on there,” she said, and suggested I get in touch with Nicole Haas.

Nicole is a physical therapist with San Francisco Sport and Spine Physical Therapy, whose clinic is housed inside Aim Fitness, Rachel’s gym.  We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past eight months, but before I saw her in April, I had never seen a physical therapist in my life.  The worst pain I had ever suffered as a runner was a solid case of runner’s knee as a freshman in high school that I outgrew within a few weeks.

Nicole’s diagnosis: I tore the tendons on the inside of my knee because my hips were weak.

What?

After a few more visits and an injection of patience on my part, this would all start making sense.

April after the injury: April 4

As a high school cross country and track coach, I witnessed more than a few times the sight of an athlete understating the severity of an injury to avoid being sidelined.  Instinctively, I understood this as a natural reaction to an unfortunate situation, especially for the most competitive boys and girls.  But it never really made sense to me.  I thought, you’re only delaying the inevitable – and in all likelihood making it worse. And I would relay that thought to them quite frequently.

Well, having not walked that particular mile in their shoes yet, it was easy for me to spout my wisdom.  Living by it, however, when I encountered the situation myself, was another story.

Like I mentioned in yesterday’s first post, I began 2009 with a mission to get in the shape I was in when I ran my PR (personal record) in the 5K: 15:59 (for those calculating, that’s 5 minutes and 9 seconds per mile).  I was 18 then, and I’m 30 now, but I know that it’s possible and that is still my goal.

January and February sauntered past with nary a step in my running shoes having been logged, but by March I was on my mission in earnest.  In fact, below is a visual representation of almost every training activity I’ve logged this year.  I’ll go over this in more detail in future posts, but orange corresponds to a day that I ran, and gray corresponds to a day that I did some other physical activity, most often lifting weights.  Orange and gray days mean I did both.

On April 4, I went on a great 9-mile run with my trail running club, The Endurables, whose exploits you can also track over at the Trail Run Times.  It was a challenging loop through the Marin Headlands, but I was hanging with the lead pack pretty much the entire way.

I arrived back at Muir Beach, our start/finish point, feeling on top of the world.  I had been running consistently for only one month yet I was already feeling in fantastic shape.  I couldn’t wait for the next Wednesday when we would meet again for our weekly track workout in Golden Gate Park.

I took that Sunday off but was back at it on Monday on the treadmill at 24 Hour Fitness (yes, I fell victim to their well-placed Biggest Loser marketing) in Larkspur.  Something didn’t feel right.  My left knee felt like it wanted to collapse inward.

But it didn’t seem that serious, so I thought, why worry? Well, in a few more days, I’d have my answer to that question.