My training for the Sarasota Half Marathon is coming along nicely. Much more smoothly than I thought would be the case, in fact. Sarasota is only 59 days away, and I’m now in my second week of tempo and hill set sessions. That sequence will go on until mid-February, when I’ll substitute speedwork for the hill sets. I’m really happy with how things have gone thus far.

Reflecting on the past month and a half of training, I’ve learned a few things about myself.

Discipline Though I’m very fond of routine (partly as a result of having Asperger’s Syndrome), I’m not nearly as keen about discipline. In the past, I’ve gone off the rails of a training program because I’ve been unable to hold myself to its requirements. That hasn’t happened this time. I’ve done what I’ve been told, and have kept the type and pace of my runs without deviation. I have, though, upped some of the distances of both steady and LSD runs, because I think that can only do good. Harder to do has been not running on rest days, or going out for a short run when the weather’s been unseasonably good. All treadmill, all the time, doing the needful.

Cross-training My training program calls for two rest days a week. I’ve been filling those spaces with a set of exercises that include stretching (upper and lower legs, plus opening my hips), plank (regular and side) and breathing (using my nifty Sport Breather). Right now, I’m up to 20 minutes of stretching, 4 minutes of plank, and 15 minutes of breathing; will probably hold to that for a while, and increase the numbers later.

Light The Winter Solstice has passed, and the days are getting longer. I find that makes a tremendous difference to how I feel, both physically and psychologically. No point in doing all this hard work and still feeling dark, gloomy, and unresponsive, is there? I’m still using my SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) light for 20 minutes each day, and will keep on doing so for at least another six weeks. And I’m sleeping well -I started using Hammer Nutrition REM Caps about a month ago, and they’ve resolved some long-standing sleep issues. I sleep deeply, and I wake up rested. Wish I’d known about them earlier.

My only concern in all of this is that all of my runs right now are being done on the treadmill. That’s mostly because it’s winter, but, even on the couple of days when it’s been possible to run outside barefoot, I’ve been on the treadmill. I run first thing in the morning, and it’s dark and cold then. Also, it’s far easier to stay to my target paces on the treadmill than it is to approximate them outside. The downside of that is that the soles of my feet aren’t going to be as well-conditioned as I’d like them to be for Sarasota. So I’m doing gravel bucket sessions two or three times a week, and hoping that the weather in early March will allow me to get out on the roads. I may just have to tough things out in some cold weather.

I’m now almost at the end of my first month of training for the Sarasota Half Marathon on March 11. It’s been the usual early training stuff – two tempo runs, two steady pace runs, one LSD run, and two days off each week. I’ve kept to the schedule, except for a couple of days when I’ve moved a rest day because of personal or work requirements. It’s been more or less an ongoing workout, because I’ve got an ambitious goal for Sarasota – a finishing time of 1:50, a full seven minutes faster than my previous PB for the distance – and that means that all of my runs, including the long runs, have been done at a much quicker pace than I’ve done previously.

It’s been an interesting experience. For all that I’m a lazy runner (heck, I’m a lazy person, if the truth be told), I’ve enjoyed pushing myself. I’m a bit surprised that I can do the speeds I’ve been doing, and can only hope that exercise-based science is correct, and that I’ll be able to build my strength, endurance, and speed even further. Starting next week (which, coincidentally, will be the first week of the new year) I’ll trade one of my weekly tempo-paced runs for a hill repeat session. I’ll start with only a few repeats, and build gradually through all of January and part of February. In mid-February, I’ll swap the hill session for speed sessions, at a pace I can now only imagine. If I can keep at it, I’m going to be a much-improved runner.

As always, the realities of a Canadian winter mean that all of my tempo, hill, and speed sessions will be done (barefoot) on the treadmill. I’ll try to get outside for at least some of my LSD runs (not barefoot, obviously, but in my Invisible Shoe huaraches and Injinji socks), but I have to be being realistic – those, too, may have to be done on the treadmill. I’m OK with that, but doing long runs on the ‘mill requires a sort of attitude adjustment. Not better, not worse, just different.

Lately, I’ve also managed to do, on a more or less daily basis, a short routine made up of stretching (legs, hips, and some upper body), plank (I can now hold the plank position for a steady two minutes), and some breathing exercises (“strength training for the diaphragm,” if you like). They don’t do anything directly for my intended running prowess, but they keep me from feeling creaky.

And I definitely feel creaky these days. It’s partly because it’s winter. I always feel old and somewhat decrepit in the cold months. It’s a combination of sensitivity to the cold, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and my deep yearning to be nearly-naked in the sun. It’s also, though, simply getting older. My wife says that I’ve aged dramatically in the past six years, and I think she may be right. During that time, I’ve broken a hip and suffered two bouts of cancer, and survived 14 months of physiotherapy for the hip and two sets of radiation therapy for the cancer. The costs have been psychological as well as physical, and the wear and tear sometimes shows.

Never mind. I’m holding up well, all things considered. And I keep telling myself that summer is on its way.

While my training program is the foundation of how I’ll spend my (running) time this winter, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve as well. More properly, I should call them “extras,” because they’re simply things that suit me and my idiosyncracies.

There’s nothing unusual about the training program itself. Its pattern is conventional – two hard sessions, two middle-effort sessions, one long run, and two days off each week. Right now, the hard sessions are tempo runs (at a much quicker pace than I’ve done in the past), but soon that will change to one tempo run a week and one hill session a week. Towards the end of the program (in late February), the hill sets will be replaced by speed/interval work. Out of necessity (because of winter weather), I’ll do most of the tempo and hill sessions on my treadmill, and will try to get outside for the middle-effort and long runs.

Now for the tweaks…

For the past 3 1/2 weeks, I’ve been warming up for my runs by doing 100Up exercises. They seem to be helping with both my speed and my form. I’m still willing to allow for some placebo effect going on here, but, at the very least, the 100Ups are a good prep for a workout, so I’ll continue to do them on a daily basis.

I’ve also started wearing compression stockings after my hard workouts. They’re similar to the compression stockings some runners wear, but for two things. One is that, as the benefits of wearing such things is inconclusive for performance improvements while running, but proven for recovery, I only wear them for a couple of hours after my hard run workouts. Secondly, they’re not athletic-specific compression stockings. They’re medical-use items, in fact a pair I wore during my last set of radiation therapy treatments last September. They’re embolism stockings, designed to prevent blood clots during certain types of stressful surgeries. (Without going into all the messy details, the radiation sessions involved me being heavily sedated and lying on my back with my legs raised for about 3 1/2 hours while long needles inserted numerous radioactive pellets into my prostate via my perineum. A fascinating procedure, but I’m glad I was sedated.) For me, the effect of wearing the stockings for a couple of hours after a tempo run is quite remarkable – less late-onset soreness, improved circulation, and better ability to get back to another workout the next day. I’ll take the stockings to Sarasota in March, to wear after the half marathon and probably on the flight home the next day.

Last, but certainly not least, I’m going to start doing gravel bucket sessions next week. A winter doing mostly treadmill runs is fine for training purposes, but it’s not going to anything to keep the soles of my feet conditioned. Come mid-March, I’m going to run 21.1K at a race pace, and I doubt that I’ll be able to squeeze in too many outdoor barefoot runs here before I head south. So my plan is to do my 100Up sets in the gravel bucket, at least three times a week, from mid-December until late February.

What all the above will do – as well as the obvious, which is to prepare me for a good performance in the Sarasota Half Marathon on March 11 – is help me survive the winter. Winters are always hard on me psychologically, and seem to be getting harder as I get older. Having goals, routines, and these little tweaks will be the honey that helps makes the medicine go down more smoothly.