Less then 50 days...

Times is flying by and its now under 50 until Boston Marathon 2013. Training goes really well and we have now started to drill more Boston specific workouts, with longer hill intervals both up and down. I can tell that the base training really got to me in the end with brutal cold weather and drilling step hill intervals. I really feel stronger from it although and I cant wait for the warmer weather to arrive here in northern NJ. I have also started to try out some new energy gels and fuel, hopefully I can blog more later about this topic. When it comes to gear, I have narrowed it down to a a few brands, will update in a later blog as well.

I also made a decision to get rid of my Polar RC3 GPS. Having a Polar has been a dream of mine as Im from Scandinavia and Polar is really big over there and when they released the integrated GPS I bought it immediately. I should have wait for the reviews....  In the end I couldn't stand the watch, it is still the best looking watch out there and slimmest but it simply dose not work for as an running watch for me. I wonder if Polar even bother to have real runners to try this product....? The display useless as you couldn't customize it. You had to push the buttons up and down until you find the options Polar had decided was good, but who has time to that during a race? It also took forever to upload to RunningAhead.com and when it was completed all data was not included, like Elevation and at times laps went missing. Even the updates on their own traininglog was screwed up and the support just came up with excuses. Honestly I was sick of Polar in the end...I was happy to get most of my money back as I put it up on Ebay. Lucky my coach Reno had a spare Garmin 610 that I could buy for a fare price. And I will never look back again at Polar.
As tune up race for Boston I was hoping to do New Bedford, but my work schedule did not work out.....So Im now looking at the weekend after 3/24/13 and a 18 miler upstate NY, its very hilly and should be a good test for me...http://www.sullivanstriders.org/30k.htm
Other news for the blog, I have reached out to all (I think all )compression brands in USA in order to do big review blog with my suggestions. I have just started to try some of them, really interesting stuff....Stay tuned...

Winter Running

Boston Marathon training means that you have to log most of your miles during the cold winter months. The last couple of years the winter has been pretty kind to us here in NJ, USA. With only a few days were the temperature has been dropping really low and way below ZERO (thank God). Wind, snow, sun and rain are all big factors when you decide what to wear for the day. I have to admit that I have big issues finding the right clothes for my runs. I'm a big sweater so generally winter running fits me much better then the hot humid summer days, but if you get your clothes wrong during your winter running, even a easy run might feel hard as you will sweat a  lot under your layers, this is my biggest issue. I like the cold weather for running but I'm also a big wimp and a "freezing onion" (Swedish saying fryslök), so I tend to over dress a lot. When you get to warm, in most of the cases its to late to get undressed as you have already started to sweat and therefor your clothes are wet. Many of the weather sites has the "true feeling temp" feature, a good tool to help you to adjust your clothing for the day. My problem might also be a northern USA east coast phenomena, I understand that other states like Minnesota and Maine (also Northern east coast but way up there...) are very cold and it might be easy to adjust clothing's before the run as it is very cold and stays that way. In NJ the temperatures varies a lot and it gets harder to adjust, just a thought.........

Clothes

The base layers is my corner stone when it comes to get the clothing right, a great base layer will keep you warm and dry. For base layer I have always put my trust in the CRAFT of Sweden, outstanding base layers. I got my first CRAFT (or stole it from my dad :) )1986 and its still going strong. Lately I have been trying a base layer from Mizunos breath thermo line with big succes. CRAFT and Mizuno layers are equal but if I have to choose its CRAFT.....As stated above i still use a CRAFT from 1986 (the traditional dark blue one) and of course I'm Swedish so that might have a small impact ;) but Mizuno does a pretty damn good job here.

Last year I invested in wind protected under wear and damn what a difference it makes. The vital parts....well you don't wont to get them cold and this made the difference for me. One of the best investments I have ever done.....I have been having good luck with Asics Men's ASX Boxer.

When it comes to socks, I go with wool all the way. I hate to have cold toes and I freeze easily. Lot of runners talk about Gore Tex shoes or what ever the different shoe companies calls there material they use for weather protection. For me wool socks is the way to go. Smartwool and lately Darn Tough has been keeping my feet warm during extreme cold weather.

My hair and head gets really wet from sweat so a good wind protected that can breath hat is to recommend. All brands has them. Gore running has been working decent during the mild winter weather. For extreme cold weather I add a headband under or/and ear mufflers......

Enjoy your winter running, stay warm and dry!