Workout: 4 mi. Easy; the Yard

Time: 43:14

Temp: 47˚F

Last night, I attended a Team in Training “run clinic” that covered topics for first-time marathoners like nutrition, hydration, and apparel. I got a few good tips I hadn’t already heard or read elsewhere, including a nice way to sum up a truth I sort of understood already, but not in convenient fortune cookie form: “If you feel warm before you start, you’re over-dressed.” Taking that tip to heart this morning, I ran in shorts and one of my looser-fitting, long-sleeved tees. I felt a little chilly for about the first half mile, but sure enough I was comfortable the rest of the time. Any longer than 4 miles, and the long sleeves would have been too much.

Another tip I heard last night was a familiar one: “For maximum safety, don’t run with headphones.” I understand the reasons, and agree that it’s in a runner’s best interest to be able to hear sound cues like cars getting closer or how close the lions are getting, but I find this a very difficult piece of advice to actually follow. When I’m running with other people, it’s no problem to leave the headphones at home, because I have company to keep my mind off the running itself. When I run alone, though, about the last thing I want to think about is the running and how tired I am, but it’s hard not to do that when the main thing I hear is my breathing getting more and more labored.

From my experience checking my heart rate monitor as I run, both with and without headphones, I know that just hearing myself can make me feel more tired than I really am. I know because without headphones, I can feel like I’m beat and check my heart rate and see that I’m only at 85% or so of my max, but with headphones, I’m pretty comfy at 85% and will often be surprised to even find myself above 90% and not feel winded. Even though I know I’m breathing hard, it doesn’t feel as hard if I can’t hear it.

Besides blocking the sound of my own breathing, the other reason I’m loathe to give up my headphones during runs is that they help fight the boredom. In these early stages of training, while we’re still just building up base mileage, my solo runs are still under an hour. Even at that length, there’s very little novelty to running the same route over and over, and the longer the runs get, the more boring they get. One of the perks of running with TnT now is that I can look forward to running in some new places, but as neat as that is, I’m not going to spend 1.5-2 hrs. driving time during the week to go run alone for 45 minutes, unless I find out that’s the favorite training spot for the Hooters marathon team, too. When I run the Yard, it’s the same .3-mile oval over and over, boring as all get-out, but it’s also 90 seconds from my front door- less if I hustle.

For now, I’ll continue to flaunt the headphone safety tip on solo runs, but I won’t feel too bad about it in the Yard; it has no cars, I never see anyone else there, and the only animals I see are birds and sometimes squirrels. If the birds or squirrels decide to attack me, I’m not sure that hearing them coming will be much help.