Running in Utah Part 2: Altitude

Wanna get in on a little secret? The day this picture was taken, my running ego was quickly deflated by altitude.

This was my first run after arriving in Utah. I knew that altitude would affect that first run, I just didn't understand how much. I chose a course with a few small hills, and they felt much hillier than they should have and I was much more out of breath during the run than I was used to. For everyday activities, I felt like I adjusted to the altitude in a few days, but it was weeks before running felt "normal" again.  

Altitude comes up frequently when talking to runner friends across the country about running here. The assumption is that running at altitude makes you stronger, and makes running at sea level feel really easy. Interestingly, when I started digging into the evidence, I've discovered that it's actually a little bit more complicated than that. Here's what I learned:

• There is agreement that if you train at sea level, you should arrive at a high-altitude race location at least 24 hours in advance, and an additional day would be better. 
• High altitudes mean "thin air," which means less oxygen. Your body responds by producing more red blood cells, which boosts VO2 max. In other words, there may be a "natural doping" effect of altitude training. But not everyone agrees on this point. Training at altitude may limit the paces you can train at, meaning that races at sea level don't result in faster times. There is actually a theory that living high and training low may be the optimal strategy (read more here).
• It is normal for your resting heart rate to be higher the first day you are at altitude. 
• As mentioned above, people here will tell you that it takes only 2-3 days to fully acclimate to altitude, but my experience with running was that it look longer. Apparently, I'm not alone. According to this, it can take 21-28 days to fully acclimate, which aligned with my experience. 
• According to the same source (and everyone who lives here), extra hydration is needed while you acclimate.
• There seems to be no agreement about the optimal altitude for training, how much time at altitude is best, or how to approach it. 

Bottom line: if you train at sea level and race at altitude, try to arrive at least 24 hours in advance, hydrate more than usual, and realize that your paces may (or may not!) be slower than usual. If you train at altitude, the benefits may be more limited than advertised, but there may be some real benefit. As Runner's World points out (here), virtually all elite runners build some altitude into their training. If they believe in it, that's enough evidence for me! 

Running in Utah Part 1: Inversions

As promised last week, today's post is about Utah's most notorious challenge for runners (and lots of other people): inversions. In short, inversions happen when high pressure weather systems effectively create a lid over the Salt Lake valley, and that lid traps pollution in the valley. This phenomenon has always happened, but man-made pollution makes it much worse. During inversions, air quality ranges from yellow to orange to red, each with guidelines about activities that should be reduced by all residents (such as using wood-burning fireplaces or stoves), industry (smelting, for instance), and vulnerable populations (elderly, children, and anyone with chronic bronchial problems, who should all stay indoors).

The severity of the air quality problems during inversions leads to an interesting public conversation, and actions that are both surprising and encouraging given Utah's general political culture. For instance, something like 99% of Utahns say they are willing to change their behavior to improve air quality. That's incredible. Salt Lake City has the largest transit system in the US given its population size. Residents of the Salt Lake Valley have embraced the idea of center-based growth, whereby growth is encouraged to happen in nodes that will increase overall density, thus reducing both pollution and water use. Those conversations are inspiring things to be part of. There's a pretty cute video about the inversions here.

To show you an example, I took a picture from the same intersection at about the same time on a day with poor air quality and on a day with good (green) air quality. Look at the difference in visability. That is pollution.

On a bad air quality day. They call this "hazy". I call it gross.  

Notice how you can see the contours of the mountains, the ridge line straight ahead, and much better definition of the road straight ahead. (Yes Mom, I was at a complete stop when I took this picture--there was no one behind me)

So what does orange and red air quality mean for runners? Mostly it means making sure you get those runs in early in the morning. The air quality is dramatically better in the very early morning than after the sun comes up. As much as I hate the inversion, I can live with this. I run very early anyway. Occasionally, either because you can't do an early morning or, on its worst day, the air quality is questionable even then, the treadmill becomes necessary. I only had to head indoors once this winter due to air quality.

The inversion also means that biking for XT is a less ideal option. A bike commute would require biking home later in the day, and the errands I usually run by bike generally aren't things I can do before 7am. Consequently, my bike has been tethered since December.

There you have it, the scoop on inversions. Up next: altitude. Stay tuned!

What is life like in Utah?

As many of you know, my family and I moved from STL to SLC this past July. While deciding whether to make the move, and even in our relocation decisions on prior moves, I spent a pretty embarrassing amount of time online trying to figure out what life would be like in our potential new city. What are the neighborhoods like? How are public schools seen? What cultural amenities are there? Is it walkable, bikeable, runable? Are people active? Educated? Conservative or liberal? How's traffic? Public transportation? Those questions and a hundred more dominated my attention and try as I might, I could not find coherent narratives about the places. Yes, of course you could blame this obsession on my chosen line of work, but that's a whole other discussion.

Since I'm still seeing this place with fresh eyes, I thought I'd take the opportunity to describe life in Salt Lake, and especially how the distinguishing features of this place impact my life as a runner. Hopefully this will be helpful to people considering visiting or moving here. There are a lot of misconceptions about this place!

After this initial post on this topic, I plan to expand on some of the points below, and some other running-specific issues of this place. To get the ball rolling, let's start with some common misconceptions about Utah:

1. All the beer is 3.2% alcohol by volume. 
   This is the myth I am most frequently asked to corroborate by my friends elsewhere. This popular myth is only partially correct. It IS true that all beer sold on tap in Utah is 3.2%, and all beer period sold in grocery stores is under 4%. However, it is also true that you can purchase bottled beer in restaurants at normal alcohol levels, and you can buy the good stuff at state liquor stores. Also, there are some really good local beers. 
2. You can't buy coffee in Utah. 
   Yes, I've been asked this. Not true. Not even a little bit. There are coffee shops on practically every corner surrounding my neighborhood, downtown, and near my work. 
3. The Mormons will evangelize you relentlessly
   Patently false. I actually have not been evangelized even one time by Mormons since moving here. There is some information given at the end of the tour of the Temple downtown, but, um, you chose you visit the HQ/temple of an evangelical church. Of course they are going to share some information with you. To be completely honest, the Mormons I've met, both here and in the Midwest, have been incredibly gracious people. 
4. Mormons practice polygamy and it is rampant in Utah
   Mostly false. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), which is the main Mormon church nationally, has not endorsed polygamy in over a century. Yes, it's best-known historical leader (Brigham Young) did have multiple wives, but it is not part of the modern church. There is at least one off-shoot of the LDS church that still practices polygamy. However, I have only twice even suspected that I was looking at a polygamist family. Partly, my exposure is limited by living in the urban heart of the state, where the religious affiliations of residents are more diverse than they are statewide. But mostly, this idea of rampant polygamy is a myth. 
5. Gender equality is a big problem in Utah
   Sadly, this is not a myth. At all. 
6. Winter is one big cluster of a sh*tstorm of snow
   How was that polar vortex? It didn't happen here. Yes, we get a lot of snow, but it's somehow not a big deal. Roads get plowed. Life goes on. People ski. The dangerous thing here is the avalanche risk. Two people died in avalanches here this weekend. It's a real thing if you're in the backcountry up in the mountains. 
7. Something called an inversion happens
   This is true. Both inversions and altitude affect running here. This will be covered in my next post, so stay tuned! Both are actually kind of mind boggling. 
8. Everyone is pregnant all the time
   Well, sort of. Truth: Utah has the highest fertility rate in the country. Also true: the fertility rate among native born whites in Utah is higher than it is elsewhere in the US, but is still barely above replacement level. Utah is growing through international migration and natural growth (births minus deaths), but largely because of the fertility rate of immigrants. 
9. You can't go anywhere or do anything on Sundays
   True: many businesses are closed on Sundays, probably because the LDS church discourages its members from engaging in work or commerce on those days. Also true: a lot of things are still open, and that means calmer grocery shopping here than anywhere else in America on a Sunday. 
10. Everyone drives a Subaru
    True. 

As I said, stay tuned. Up next: running in the Midwest v. West, Part 1.

January Recap

The first month of the new year has come to a close. How'd it shape up for you? Here's a look back at my January 2014.

# Miles Ran: 51.8. This was higher than my November or December mileage, so I'll take it!

# other workouts: 4 yoga classes. I LOVE my yoga class. I can only go once a week, and I look forward to that every week.

Race updates: This was the month for race updates. I signed up for 2 half-marathons, joined a running group, and made my training schedule for now through September. And it all begins February 10!!

I joined a running group!!! Yes, I know I already said it, but I thought it deserved its own headline. It's been 3.5 years since I moved away from my wonderful little training group in Illinois. I want that back.

Other fitness goal updates: I've been holding steady at a weight I can live with. I'd still like to lose the last 5 pounds of baby weight though. He's turning 2 in April. I mean, honestly, it's time. Food journaling is the answer.

January's running highlight: One day last week as I headed out, well before sunrise, the neighborhood quiet, and it was just me running under the street light. I felt like I owned the city. It was mine--mine to bring into the morning. I was free.


Things I'm looking forward to in February: 
1. Kicking off the 2014 training season!
2. Running in increasing daylight in the early mornings
3. Hopefully the end of inversions! Yuck! I have a whole post coming soon on this topic.
4. Getting to know the other people in my running group each week.
5. Finally, finally getting my mp3 player in working order so I can take it to the gym on those dreadmill days

House projects completed: I haven't posted about it because it's kind of personal, but we've undertaken some home renovation. In the fall, we gutted our kids' bathroom and the laundry area. That was finished just before Christmas. In early January we gutted on the master bath....aaand this happened (see below). What's worse is that it was there for almost a week before I noticed it, which is unlike me. Oh my! 

2 potties and a dumpster. Keeping it classy.

Meanwhile, I've been learning to sew. My parents stayed with us for a while over Christmas, and during that time my Mom and I made draperies for our living room. Just in case you should ever need to know this: draperies take forever to make. Or, at least they took me forever to make. But they look great and we saved a ton of money. After they left, I completed my first Roman shade, for my older son's room. I'm really proud of it! I have plans to make more for the other windows in his room.

And that was the month. How was your January!

Yes! I joined [a different] lot of us

I last left the ol' blog with a question: should I join the running group I checked out? That decision, and the conversations I had with a few of you about it, have set off a series of possibly-great-but-definitely-terrifying decisions, which I will present in order of least to most terrifying.

Least Terrifying Decision
They said come join the lot of us, and I said....    (btw, this line is from But Not the Hippopotamus, which you should read whether you have small children or not)

I said, I should come join a running group. Yes. But...not that one. Per Jodi's suggestion, I met up with the group a second time, this time for a regular Saturday run. It just didn't click for me. I think the issue was two-fold. One, despite having a dazzling array of pace-themed training groups& coaches, and the frighteningly low number of people in my training group, the "group" (a term I have to use loosely because I'm not sure it was anyone other than the coach and his son) took off for a distance appropriate for full marathon training, leaving me more or less on my own. Second, and as a result of the first point, I was the fastest person among those left behind by a fairly wide margin, and, isn't avoiding solo long runs the whole point of joining a group?

In an effort to find an alternative, I scouted out other local options and struck upon a Saturday-only training group run by the Salt Lake Running Company. Having missed the kick-off and having spoken to no one about it, I signed up. It was now or never. It's only 4 months, I told myself. Wait, 4 months? Not 6? Yes...because this group is training for the Salt Lake Marathon & Half in April, which leads me to Decision #2.

Second Least Terrifying Decision
So, I registered not only for the running group, but the Salt Lake Half, to be held in April. Since it's only 11 weeks out, I planned to use my trusty old RW sub-2 half training plan. I've used it several times before. I know I can do it, and I know it will bring me over the finish line in the anticipated time frame. No biggie. I didn't anticipate training so early in the year, but it will be good for me.

But then I thought...I have some pretty specific goals for the Top of Utah Marathon in September. Specifically, to not Fuel Fail a la Cleveland. And with appropriate fueling, turn in a shiny new PR. And if I wanted to do that, I would need to up my training.

immediately post-fuel fail at Cleveland, with the aforementioned Jodi (center, right)

Which brought me to...

Decidedly Terrifying Decision #1
...registering for the Utah Valley Half in June and [gulp] buying the sub-1:45 RW training plan for it. Now, before you jump all over me, yes, I know that dropping 10 minutes off my PR is probably too much. But I do think it's time for a new PR, and this is the next step up in training. It's time. Plus, it will help me to accomplish that last goal...

Terrifying Decision #2
...to attempt to sub-4 Top of Utah in September. I've long said that it would take me another 2 marathons to break that barrier. But, I'm going for it. Unapologetically, and fully aware that it's entirely possible that it won't happen. I bought the RW sub-4 marathon training schedule and it's in my handy dandy Excel training spreadsheet.

The net effect of this is that I'm scheduled to run about 1,000 miles between now and late September, when I've never done more than 850 in a year, and I'm asking myself to set 2 new PRs over the course of 3 races. I've bitten off a lot. Especially considering that the rest of life is CRAZY, but we won't get into that.

I told all of this to a good friend a few days ago and I thought her response was apt. Remember that time you called, enormously pregnant, and told me you were about to stand on a ladder and use power tools? This might be similar. 

Pretty much. Except that this time, it isn't going to end with said friend installing curtain hardware while I sit in a rocking chair. Ready. Set. Go.

They said, come join the lot of us. And I said, I just don't know.

I have a big decision to make. Is this the right time to join a running group? And, have I found the right group for me?

A few weeks ago my neighbor invited me to attend an info session for our local chapter of USA Fit. I dutifully checked them out online. The registration fee is $110, which gives you group runs on Saturdays for about 4 months, with pace group coaches, and a 1-year membership to the Olympic Oval (indoor track that's 3.5 laps to a mile--love!!). This past Saturday we headed to the Oval to hear all about it.

After the obligatory greetings and info sharing, we did time trials. This I did not anticipate. Honestly, I had no idea what was happening for a while. The coaches led us in a half-ish mile warm-up then stepped off the track, leaving us to do our time trial. What did that mean? Our fastest 2 miles? Race pace for some distance? An easy run? Tempo pace? I had no idea, so I just let loose and ran. After a few minutes I was running alongside a guy I'd guess was about 20, and clearly we were both having fun and neither of us was going to blink first. So....we ran. We ran 2 miles in 15 minutes flat. Uhhh...was I supposed to do that? I still honestly don't know, but I'm guessing not.

Why? Because the coach came up to me after and told me I should aim for a 3:30 marathon. I laughed out loud. I told him that I'm hoping to sub-4 in my next marathon or 2, and have no ambition to run a 3:30. Like I said, uhhhhh. Huh.

Aside from setting them straight on pacing if I do join, I just have a lot of questions. More reasons for and against joining come to mind, but I'm keeping it to the top 3 of each.

Reasons to join:
1. We are still pretty new here, and while we've made some real progress on finding friends and starting to get involved in the community, we still have a long way to go before this place feels like home. Joining the group would be an opportunity to make new friends.

2. It would motivate me to sign up for a late spring half, which would be healthy. Without a training plan, and with winter weather happening, I've found it a little harder than usual to find motivation to run. A concrete goal would help.

3. The coach seems like someone who could push me to the next level. I may be able to do this on my own to some extent, but a group never hurts.

Reasons not to join: 
1. The coach seems to have some delusion about my potential race pace. This sort of intimidates me.

2. I realize this somewhat contradicts the above point, but the group seems to be geared more toward beginners. I'm a little concerned about ending up in a very small pace group and not getting to know the larger group, since they have different coaches.

3. As it turns out, my neighbor can't join this season, so I'd be going in solo.


So, what do I do? How do you know if you've found the right training group? Should I just go for it? It's only 1 season, right?

2013 in Review

Hello hello, and welcome to 2014!! I realize this recap post is a bit late. December turned out to be a wee bit on the crazy side, so I decided to give myself some time away from the blog. I'm excited to be back and have lots of stuff planned to share with you over the coming month or so.

Where was I the last month? The wee crazy was also lots of fun. There was a lot of travel, which was kicked off with a Thanksgiving trip to Florida (see here), then back to my beloved St. Louis for a perfect weekend (here, it was a work trip for my hubby and the rest of us happily tagged along for a very abbreviated weekend). Then the following weekend I was off to Detroit solo to meet up with ODP, Kdot, my neices, Big Pete and Pepper for ODP's graduation. (idea: I should add a tab to my blog that gives the cast of characters. That would be fun to put together!! Yes! This is happening. For the time being, see the footnote on this post if you're not familiar with my peeps) I seriously could not be prouder of my big brother, or more thankful for Kdot for being his rock through the whole adventure. Love you guys!!

My parents (Big Pete and Pepper) flew back to SLC with me that weekend. They stayed through the New Year and while Christmas was lovely, and I made great strides toward learning to sew, and our bathroom remodel Part 1 was completed, the real headline was that Pepper managed to wreck two cars while seated in the back seat of my Prius. I really wish I were kidding. GAME: I'll give you two images of the damage and you try to figure out what happened. Leave it in the comments. The more outrageous detail, the better. 

Shortly after the accident, it was NYE and time to summarize another year of running (not my best segue, I know. Leave it alone). Here are the basic stats:

Total miles: 737. I'm pleased with this. I ran a grand total of 281 in 2012 (had a baby people, quit gawking!) and estimated that I'd cover about 700 in 2013. 

Total other workouts: I honestly don't know because I didn't track most of them, but I'm really pleased with my yoga work this past year. I went to several great classes with my good friend LW back in STL, and I attended at least 1 class per week from early August through early November, then a few after that. I enjoyed it so much that I signed up for another class that runs through May. 

Types of run workouts: Every year I post a graph like this. I love these. 

I joined the hundo club twice in 2013 (woot!!) and built in a good variety of workouts in both of my training cycles. July's dip in mileage isn't surprising considering the cross-country move that happened that month!

Races: As anticipated and planned for, I completed 2 half-marathons in 2013. First up was the Lincoln Presidential Half-Marathon in early April (race recap here). My goal was to come in under 2 hours and I just barely did. I ran the whole thing with a smile on my face, SO THANKFUL to be out there racing.

My BRFF and I ran the Raleigh City of Oaks Half in early November (race recap here). The course was a bit hillier than we anticipated, but 6.5 years after setting our goal to sub-2 together, we finally did. SO proud of how we ran this race, and even happier that we got to run it together.

Acclimating: As I said, we moved across the country in July, and to a climate unlike places we'd lived before, and at an elevation I haven't lived at in many years. For longer than I'd care to admit, I was sucking wind while running, but eventually my body did adapt to the dry, thin air. Now that I'm used to it, I see it as a training benefit of living here. Racing at sea level should feel great! Acclimating is more than that, though. It also means settling into life here. We've slowly started to make new friends. We've made some investments in making this place our home by buying bikes, finding other outdoor gear, and renovating large parts of our new house. I'm even checking out a running group with my neighbor this weekend! Here's to expanding my circle of running buddies in 2014.

Looking forward: I have big goals for 2014. Two very specific ones, to be exact. I want to set new PRs in both the half and full marathon. Admittedly, I'm way more committed to the idea of a new marathon PR, as I still, badly, want to avenge my last 26.2 (Cleveland 2011--I know it's been a while. I had a baby, people!). I'm strongly considering registering for a half in the late spring/early summer, and it seems like PRing that would lay good groundwork for PRing the full in September. 

I'd also like to set a new mileage PR in 2014. After digging around my blog, it looks like that PR stands at 830 (and I was pregnant for half of that year?!??!!), which might be tough to top! I will plan to train for my races, and if that means posting a new annual mileage number, wonderful, but I'm not going to stress over it. 

How did your 2013 shape up? Did you hit your goals? Did you get inspired to set new goals? 

Cast of Characters:

ODP: my brother

Kdot: my sister-in-law, ODP's wife

Big Pete: my Dad

Pepper: my Mom

Mr. Joanna: my husband

BRFF: Best Running Friend Forever, Meg

Salt (not appearing in this post): my MIL