Day 212, 153 To Go

July 31, 2013

It is the end of the month, so that means I have to sum up my numbers for the month soon.  I will have that done in a couple of days or so, so keep an eye out for it.  I hope I was able to increase all of my numbers, but Honey ran a lot this month, so that has a tendency to lower my overall mileage.  It does increase her overall mileage though, so as long as one of us is making good progress, it is a good month!

In my continuing series, today I will discuss rule #8 of The 25 Golden Rules of Running from Runner's World magazine.

8. The Heads-Beats-Tails Rule 
A headwind always slows you down more than a tailwind speeds you up.

So expect to run slower on windy days. "I disregard the watch on really windy days because headwinds cost me 15 to 25 seconds a mile, and I only get a portion of that back after I turn around," says Monte Wells, a longtime runner in Amarillo, Texas, America's windiest city. "The key is to monitor your effort, not your pace. Start against the wind, so it's at your back in the second half."

The Exception: On point-to-point runs with the wind at your back, you'll fly along faster than usual.

It seems like most of like follows this rule.  The bad part is always worse than the opposite good part.  Take dieting, for instance.  You can eat and eat and the fat will disproportionately go to your belly and your ass, but when you lose weight, you loose it evenly across your whole body making it harder to shrink those troubled areas.  That's why any exercise program that promises to "target your abs" for fat burning is full of shit.  What it may do is build the muscles in that area, but it won't burn any more fat in that area.

So with windy days, the tailwind is a help, but nowhere near as much of a help as the headwind is a hindrance.  I do not run, or ride for that matter, with a lot of power.  I am just not a powerful guy, so when I ride a bike into the wind, it basically neutralizes me.  Same for running into a strong headwind.  I don't even bother fighting it because I know I will just loose more energy than I may gain when the wind is at my back, assuming the course is some sort of out and back route. 

You can always run behind someone so they can take the brunt of the wind and you will save a lot of energy that way.  This is called drafting.  It is something you usually see in swimming and biking, not running, but it works here too.  In biking and swimming, you can save up to 30% of your energy.  I don't think this large a percentage applies in running, but there has to be some savings.  Pick someone much bigger than you and it will help more.  Of course, if they are much slower than you, it won't save you much time, but it will save you some effort.

Here are our numbers today on a very non windy day:

Time: 25:00

Distance: 2.22 miles

Pace: 11:16/m

Max Pace: 9:39/m

Calories: 221
Avg HR: 114

Max HR: 124

Honey didn't break 11 again today, but she had a good run and she is consistently staying in the 11:00 to 11:20 range which is fantastic.  There weren't many stops today either, so progress was made on that front as well.  Until next time Honey...

Run for Life!!