How to Survive Winter Running

There are a million and one posts on this topic floating around the internet, but after toughing it out through the snow and wind on my run yesterday, I decided I wanted to share my own tips for winter running.

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1. Find a beautiful place with clear paths to run
The biggest thing that helped me transition from a fair-weather runner to an all-weather runner was finding a place where I could run year-round.  Before, once snow covered my favorite trails and bike paths leaving me with only the slushy street to run on, it was tough to find the motivation to get outside.  Last winter I joined a local arboretum where the quiet roads are kept clear.  Between the amazing scenery and the opportunity to run on a clear road with minimal cars, I'm much more pumped to get out there!

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2. Invest in some good shoes and yak trax

Last year I got my first pair of YakTrax and immediately wondered what had took me so long to buy them!  They're a lifesaver on icy winter roads.

Check out my YakTrax!  #lifesaver

This winter, though, I bought a pair of trail shoes.  Oh my gosh, another awesome investment!  They are perfect for days when it's slushy or icy out, but there isn't enough snow for yaktrax.  I also love how much drier my feet stay in these compared to my regular running shoes.

Absolutely love my Brooks Pure Grits.  Perfect trail shoes for anyone who likes a lightweight feel but is still looking for serious traction.

3. Get a few high quality pieces of winter running apparel
Here's what you need: Warm fleece-lined tights, thick socks (love the Smart Wool pair I got this winter), warm base layer turtleneck, light jacket, something to keep your neck warm, and gloves or mittens.

I bought this lululemon neck warmer last winter--it's great for keeping my face warm on windy days!

4. Protect your skin
I ALWAYS carry chapstick or carmex when running in the winter because my lips get so dry.  Also, moisturizer/sunscreen is a must.  Wind can do a number on your skin in winter, and the sun can still be fierce, especially when it reflects off the snow.  On super cold/windy days, though, I go one step further--coat my face with a little bit of Vaseline.  My skin was so chapped last winter that this was the only thing that saved it!

5.  Find some all-weather running buddies!
Nothing is quiet as motivating on a cold, snowy day than knowing your friends are meeting you for your miles. :)

Training Tuesday: Gear I Cannot Live Without

Don't forget to enter my Cheribundi tart cherry juice Giveaway!

Over the past few years, I have tried a ton of different running clothes, shoes, and gear.  Here are some of the things I cannot live without!

Brooks Pure Cadence Shoes
I have had the worst trouble in the past finding running shoes that fit my feet, but last year I fell IN LOVE with these shoes.  They are super lightweight and just feel great running.  The awesome colors don't hurt either!  After running in these, my old regular running shoes feel super clunky.  They're definitely not a minimalist shoe, but a great option for someone looking for a lightweight shoe.

Nike Tempo Shorts
Absolute favorite running shorts, hands down.  I've tried running in compression shorts, skirts, etc., but these babies beat them all for me.  Plus who can resist the adorable colors and prints!

Rock Tape

This stuff has saved my running, f'real.  I have tried a million things to combat IT Band Syndrome over the last 2+ years--stretches, strengthening exercises, form changes, shoe changes, physical therapy, rest (turns out rest actually made my ITBs tighter...), but eventually I just needed to get on with my running life.  Enter Rock Tape!  I know, I know, this stuff is just a bandaid covering the symptoms of my ITBS, but it keeps me running!  I have tried KT tape too, but I way prefer Rock Tape.  I like that I can cut the strips myself, and it stays on WAY better than KT tape in my opinion.

Check out my pink rocktape! :)

Yur Buds

I love these little guys.  They actually stay in my ears--it's a miracle! They're not perfect and need some adjustments on really sweaty runs, but they are definitely the best ear buds I've tried.

Garmin 405

I had the bulkier, calculator-watch-resembling Garmin 205 for a few years before upgrading to the 405.  Before I bought this watch, I read a lot of reviews online including many negative ones.  It seems like people's biggest complaint was the bezel, but I have never had a problem with it.  In fact, I love it!  Fits my wrist so much more comfortably than the 205.

Yay for ((rarely)) finishing runs before 5am!

The Stick

We all know the importance of foam rolling, but I'm not going to lie--sometimes I get lazy with rolling!  The Stick does a great job at breaking up those knots just like rolling, but it's easy to use sitting on the couch watching TV.  It's also so portable--I throw it in the car when I'm driving to the forest preserve for long runs so that I can roll out before and after.  I also bring it to races sometimes to use at the finish line.  Who wants to lay down on the sidewalk or in a parking lot with a foam roller?  It also works great for travel.

Rollin' Out after the Chicago Spring Half

Road ID Slim
While this baby isn't exactly going to call the police if I get attacked on the run, at least it's better than nothing!  Seriously though, if I'm running alone, I'm wearing this thing.  100% of the time.  It lets my mom rest easy if nothing else.  I like that it comes in little sizes too--nothing worse than worrying about something sliding around on your wrist or falling off when you're out running!

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Nike Featherlight Running Cap

I LOVE headbands--active bands, bondi bands, you name it--but on a super hot day, only a hat can keep my thick, frizzy hair under control.  I also love these hats in the rain to keep water out of my eyes.  Light, comfortable, and awesome!

Gu Peanut Butter
Gu is my fuel of choice for long runs--easy to choke down, easy on the tummy.  PB is the only flavor lately that not only doesn't nauseate me, but that I actually love the taste of!

Beautiful Niece playing with a PB Gu--that's my girl!

Compression Sleeves, Socks, & Shorts
I have totally drunk the compression wear kool-aide.  Reason why?  IT WORKS.  Period.  I usually wear compression sleeves on long runs and socks/shorts for recovery.  I swear I can tell a difference in how my muscles feel after wearing them!  For sleeves I like Zensah and CEP, my favorite socks are Recovery Socks and Pro Compression socks, and I have shorts from both Asperis and Tommie Copper.

Rocking compression socks (and three other things from this post!) after the Disney Princess half!

What running gear can you not live without?

Disclaimer: I received no compensation for this post--I just love this stuff and wanted to share it with you!  

My Ridiculous Shoe Dilemma...

I have shoe issues.  I'm not talking about my obsession with buying shoes (which is very real and very much an issue...).  I'm talking about my current running shoe major issues.  This is a long one, but I seriously need your help!!!!  Some back story...

I have weird feet.  I also have a really weird stride.  I'm positive this is why I'm always injured  and yes, I know, I need to change my form.... Anyways, when I run I do something weird with my right foot when I hit the ground--I don't really understand what I'm doing  but when I've had my feet filmed on the treadmill at the running store, you can see something a little weird happening with that right foot.  Somehow I think this is connected to the fact that like 90% of running shoes run my right ankle weirdly and uncomfortable when I run in them.  Just the right side, which is why I think it's a stride thing.  I don't really know what I'm doing and therefore have no idea how to change it.  It makes buying running shoes tricky though!  Every pair of Asics, Sauconys, and Mizunos I've tried has rubbed that ankle and been immediately ruled out.  New Balances are hit or miss.  Nikes don't bother me there  but I just don't like them--I think my old nikes were the reason I used to get so many awful knots in my calves.  Since switching to Brooks, I haven't had any issues with calf knots, and they used to be seriously out of hand awful.  I even had a brief membership to Massage Envy to get them professionally kneaded out back when I was training for my first half--only now do I realize it was partly because of the damn shoes.

These Nikes got me through my first 13.1, but they were NOT the shoe for me!

The only brand of shoes I've had consistent luck with has been Brooks.  I bought my first pair of Brooks Ghost 3's back in May 2011 and loved them.  I bought another pair last November and cycled between the two before retiring the first pair.  In May I added a pair of Brooks Pure Cadences to the mix.  I LOVE those shoes.  I still have that second pair of Ghosts because they even after a year they have under 250 miles on them.   I only run 3 days a week since I've been pretty much wearing the Ghosts only on long runs and Cadences in shorter runs during the week, so they've lasted awhile.  However, they are at the end of their lift.   I know some people can get 500 miles out of their shoes, but I can tell these shoes are just DONE.

I saw it coming a few months ago and ordered a pair of Ghost 4s online, figuring they'd be the same as the 3s.  WRONG.  Oh my gosh wrong.  They tweaked them a little bit and now they rub my darn ankle too!

Ghost 4s...They will always look this bright and shiny... :(

GAHH!  Brooks!  You've let me down!  I scoured the internet to try to track down another pair of 3s, but seeing that Brooks is already on Ghost 5s, it is pretty much impossible to find 3s anywhere.  Bummer.
I LOVE my Pure Cadences, but I've never worn them over 5 or 6 miles.  They aren't really a minimalist shoe since they have nice cushioning and a little stability, but they are a lightweight and have a 4mm heel toe drop, a change from Ghosts.  I wear would like to make cadences my primary running shoe because I love the feel of them so much, but planned to do the smart thing and wait until after the space coast half to transition into them. 

Love these shoes.  Love my stretchy laces for triathlon too :)

I planned to make my ghosts last long enough to run the half marathon at the end of this month, then take a trip to the running store to experiment with some new shoes while simultaneously building up mileage on the cadences before the Disney Princess half in February.  

Well, after Saturday's 10mi race, this plan doesn't seem as foolproof as it did before.  I had weird aches and pains in my feet throughout the entire race.  Not fun.  Now, 2 weeks out from the half, I am torn.  Part of me knows it's crazy to run a race in shoes I haven't trained in, but part if me knows that it could be worse to run in dead shoes that are hurting my feet.  What to do???

Option 1: run in the ghosts and cross my fingers that my feet make it through unscathed.
Option 2: run in the cadences and cross my fingers that I don't jack up my feet/legs because I didn't transition to them properly.
Option 3: ???

What do you guys think?? I am leaning towards the cadences.  I've run up to 5/6 miles in them comfortably, and after reading several blogs where runners said they didn't really need a transition period to adjust to Cadences (the worst case I read was some calf achiness...), I'm thinking I should be okay in them.  Not only do I not want to search for a new basic neutral running shoe this close to the race, I don't really have time!  But the injury-phobe in me knows that running a 1/2 marathon in ANY shoe I didn't train consistently in is a mistake...ugh.  Please weigh in...

Tofurkey Day Happenings

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!  I don't know about you, but I've spent the past few days catching up with old friends, napping, reading, and working my way into a stuffing-and-green-bean induced coma...in short, it's been BLISS.  As much as I love Christmas and the festivities that surround it (not to mention the two glorious weeks off of school...), Thanksgiving break is always the most wonderful, much-needed relief from school stress.  By mid-November, in my classroom at least, the kids are showing their true colors, and I'm finding it harder and harder to keep a smile on my face.  Report cards are due, we're gearing up for round 2 of MAP testing, and the weather's starting to turn which always means less recess (read: squirrly kiddos).  Enter Thanksgiving, aka 5 days of student-free, food-full happiness.

I kicked off my Thanksgiving break Tuesday evening when I decided to abandon all previous plans of staying late at school and prepping for the following week...instead, I made a stop at the library, picked up a teen book I'd been dying to get my hands on, and settled myself in front of the fire at Caribou with some tea and yummies.   I didn't move for about 2 hours.  Perfection.

If you are wondering, the book is Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver.  It. was. amazing.

Wednesday I spent the afternoon wandering IKEA with a friend.  Oh IKEA...How I love pretending I live in the amazing rooms, especially those featuring 2-story closets, libraries, and (wait for it) wine racks...I bought a new desk (thank goodness because my shabby old desk is older than I am and NOT in the stylish, antique-y way!), and spent the afternoon putting it together with the help of my tool-savvy friend.  Voila!

(Just so you know, we couldn't manage to get my old desk apart so it's currently sitting out on my balcony until my dad can come rescue it...)

Wednesday evening my book club and I saw BREAKING DAWN!!!!  So exciting.  You better believe we were sporting our Give Blood tshirts! Those were WELL EARNED!  Where to even begin with this movie...it was...AWFUL!!!!  And yet, so wonderful.  I really felt this movie was more awkwardly horrible than #3, but I loved it anyways.

On Thanksgiving morning, I met one of my bestest friends who was back in town from grad school to run a 5-mile Turkey Trot.  When I say we ran this race together, I mean we drove there together, lined up at the start together, then wished each other "Good Luck!" before he took off at a pace almost twice as fast as mine.  So goes the life of a Slow Runner. :)  This was a really nice race about 5 minutes from my parents house.  We ran 3 laps around the campus at a community college, which meant that the lead runners were lapping me before I was even halfway around!  I don't find that irritating or depressing, though--it is kind of awesome to watch such super fast runners!  Obv my IT band started giving me grief at mile 4, making the end of the run a little *uncomfortable*...I have been slacking big time on my foam rolling lately, which I know is why I can't seen to shake this tightness.  I am committing to foam rolling twice a day for the time being, in hopes of loosening this bad boy up.

 After the Turkey Trot, you better believe I ate my weight in stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes, and, yes, tofu.  No, I did not have Tofurkey, but my wonderful Dad marinated some tofu for a side dish.  YUM!  The only thing missing from Thanksgiving was one of my older brothers, who lives in Florida.  :(

Many of my close friends have moved out of state in the past few years, but holidays usually bring everyone home!  Love it!  I had brunch with a college friend Friday morning and hosted several close high school friends at my apartment Friday night.  Because my friends and I are SUPER cool, we usually end up playing Catch Phrase or some other silly game that is a throw back to our lame high school past.  Friday, however, we were disappointed to find that the timer "beeping" wasn't working!  After I insisted that a stopwatch wouldn't work as a replacement because "the beeps need to get faster in catch phrase!" my computer geek (read: GENIUS) friend decided to write a quick program on my computer to play beeping sound that would progressively increase in speed...you know, just a normal Friday night...

After a busy and exhausting few days, I spend basically the entire day Saturday curled up under a blanket, reading and napping on and off.  Perfection.  I peeled myself off for a 3 mile run at some point, then promptly returned to the blanket for more reading.  LOOOVE quiet days.

Nothing like new Brooks to get you out and moving!

In other news, my brother and sister-in-law texted me from the Space Coast Marathon in Cocoa, Florida this morning.  They were spectating as sis-in-law's friend ran the 1/2 marathon, and they sent me a picture of her medal:

OMG!  BEST MEDAL EVER!  (To fully understand my excitement, you should know that my family has a major geek obsession with the space program and NASA.  This obsession has gone on my whole life, and only got worse when Older Brother got a job at NASA in 2004...)  I better convince my brother to stay in Florida again next year for Thanksgiving so I can come down and run this race...

What made your Thanksgiving wonderful?
What is the coolest race medal you have ever seen/gotten?

Sweaty Six

I ran my first six miles EVER five months ago while training for the Princess Half.  It was snowy and freezing out that day and I was stuck inside on the treadmill.  I remember that it was really tough to make it through the end of the run, and afterwards thinking, "MAN!  How am I EVER going to run more than DOUBLE that?!"  The next week I ran my second EVER six mile run.  This time, it was December 26th, and let's just say I was not in the best shape after an extremely *festive* Christmas celebration the day before with my family which had been filled with beer, baileys, and general debauchery.  During THAT six miles on the treadmill I spent the entire time staring at the trashcan located about 10 feet away from me and repeating "you are NOT going to throw up" over and over in my head.  That was a fun one.

Today's six miler (the first in my training cycle for the Rock 'n' Roll Half) did not include snow or near-vomiting.  THANK GOODNESS.  It also didn't involve *fear* because this time the distance is not scary to me.  :)  Been there, done that!!  That being said, my first run of the year in 80 degree heat was a bit of a challenge.  Like a good little runner, I went to bed early-ish last night after putting on my running clothes (obv) and laying out all of my things...

...including the new pair of Brooks Ghost running shoes I bought yesterday!  My Nike Vomeros still have about 200 miles left in 'em, but I've been wanting to try a new pair that's a little lighter.  Mrs. Mentor Teacher moonlights as a fabulously knowledgeable salesperson at her local running store, so I trekked out there yesterday with my mom and tried a bunch of shoes before settling on these Brooks.

This morning the fabulous Girls on the Run Coach Melinda was running in her second ever 8K race, so I dedicated my run to her. :)  It was a gorgeous sunny day, but a little warmer than I expected, and leaving my water/gatorade in the car was a mistake.  I definitely wish I had brought my hand-held water bottle, because by the time I passed my car after 4 miles I was parched!  I took a quick break and GULPED down water/gatorade and saw that I had a text from Coach Melinda that she had PRed in her race!  YAY!  

Coach Melinda shares my affinity for compression gear and the color pink.
How amazingly vibrant are her sleeves?!

After my quick break, I set out on my last two miles feeling MUCH more hydrated, but still exhausted.  Let me tell ya, they were pretty tough, but it definitely could have been worse.  I finished strong (albeit tired and mega dehydrated...), having kept a solid pace throughout the run.  I LOVE the Brooks shoes--they felt great!

What I Learned: It's better to bring too much water than not enough!  I definitely was wishing I had another entire bottle of water for after my run, not to mention the fact that I could have used my hand-held bottle throughout...It is now officially WARM OUT, and (duh) I need to be bringing water on long runs.  Period.

PS: A big hug and shout out to Coach Lauren who had a rough race this weekend but is still a superstar (cue sparkle fingers)

Egg-citing Purchase!

I have calmed down a bit after my egg-cellent vegetarian crisis of being the other day aka Miss Teacher starts googling treatment of egg-laying chickens and ends up on the PETA website almost crying...gosh, I need to learn to STOP EXCESSIVE RESEARCHING.

Anyways, while I am toying with the idea of a "vegan summer," I decided a step in the right direction was to stop at the Farmer's Market this morning and buy a dozen of these beautiful babies...

Can you believe the CRAZY colors of these eggs?!?  No, they are not dyed!  The vendor said that there is a type of chicken that lays these awesome rainbow eggs!  A.maz.ing.  (The 8 year old in me is positive that each color of egg will taste different. :)

And now, I am off on an adventure/quest/mission to buy some new running shoes.  :)

What are your Saturday plans?