29 Days until the Boston Marathon. 29 days and 11 hours and 40 minutes. That’s less that a normal-sized month (oddball February excluded) away. But who’s counting? Me, that’s who. Gulp.
Why is it that winter, which usually seems so endless, felt so short? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I started my training? And now I’m almost out of time. I’m a winter runner and I’m not ready for my cold weather training to end. In a choice between +20C and -20C I’ll pick the latter every time. I revel in the sub-zero training and the near-zero racing. But suddenly spring is in the air, the layers off winter are coming off, and Boston is less than a normal-sized month away. I have precious few days of cool training weather left before the hot humid haze takes over. I have precious few days of training left before my running quadfecta begins. I’m feeling the heat, in more ways than one.
I’m not alone in my love of the cold. A study pulling together years of marathon results and weather data concluded that 41F/5C is the ideal marathon temperature. As the mercury rises to 10C performance drops by 1.7% and at 15C performance is down 2.5%. And it just keeps getting worse as the temperatures soar. Those results – totally me. So, until the heat wave begins I’m taking full advantage of the last chill of winter. The gloves aren’t off, yet.
Title Reference: Europe – The Final Countdown. From the album the Final Countdown. 1986.
