RUNNING DORMANCY

As I write this, Groundhog Day is just passed. Originally referred to as Candlemas Day in ancient times, it has long been a tradition to watch the weather on February 2nd and use it as a predictor of what is to come. Set midway between the shortest day of the year and the spring equinox, Candlemas Day was the day when all the candles to be used in the church for the coming year were brought in and blessed.
The tradition of consulting a critter seems to have originated with the Germans, who looked to see if the badger saw snow, in which case he’d emerge and walk on it, but if he saw sun, would retreat back to his hole. Here in America, we’ve learned to turn to Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvanian groundhog, and wonder whether he sees his shadow or not. Scared of his shadow, Phil will turn tail and hibernate for 6 more long weeks if he sees it. As an old rhyme explains:
If Candlemas day be sunny and bright, Winter again will show its might
If Candlemas Day be cloudy and grey, Winter soon will pass away.
For some runners, a lesson can be learned here. This is also the time of year when various runners’ magazines have tips on staying motivated and on maintaining your running enthusiasm throughout the winter months. Unless you live in warmer climes, going out and getting in your miles at this time of year can be a challenge.
Not only do you have to gauge the wind chill and wind direction in order to figure out how you’re going to layer yourself, you have to figure out how to carry items you tend to need to remove once you get going for a few miles and start to get warm. Will you be able to tuck your hat into your waistband? Tie your outer shell around your waist? If you head out with the wind and work up a sweat, then turn around and have to run back into the wind, the sweat turns icy really fast.
How to keep your nose from freezing, running, and able to get oxygen in and out of you is another issue. I still have trouble with that one. If you wear glasses, there is often a point where they fog or ice over and you’re either rubbing at them with your mitten or just taking them off and running in a blur. Given that the roads may be snowy or icy when this happens makes a basic 5-mile training run a real extreme adventure sport if you’re running in the city and contending with traffic.
So what’s the lesson alluded to above? It’s not for everyone. If you have just started running, then do read those motivational articles and keep adhering to your running schedule as best you can. Move to the treadmill if you must, but do not run back into your house like the groundhog runs back to his den as he so often does on February 2nd. There’s a reason why AA recommends 90 meetings in 90 days to people beginning an alcohol-free life. The theory is that you need to do something for 90 days in order for it to begin to be a habit. (Beginning runners should NOT run 90 days in a row, but take rest days. Just stick with your program!)
If you are training for a spring marathon or half marathon, you too must shoulder on and follow your schedule as best you can. One of the many things that makes Boston a tough race is just this: it takes place in April, when the weather is still never dependable (it can be brutally hot or very cold or raining in sheets) and you have to start training for it in January, when most runners are in the coldest, darkest time of the year. Failing to follow through with your training now means you will need to ease up on time goal on your spring race, or downsize it to the next shorter distance.
Here’s the Groundhog Day Idea for everyone to ponder. For those of you who have been running for a while and finding it hard to keep up your former enthusiasm, perhaps taking a page from the groundhog’s diary and modifying it a bit might be in order. Take a few days off from running. No, not 6 weeks; but perhaps as much as a week or two. Just stop running.
You can and should maintain your aerobic conditioning. Swim or go to the gym and workout on aerobic machines. You need to keep your heart rate up for a steady rate so you don’t lose fitness. Mix it up if you like; add in some basketball (not shooting hoops, but a real running game up and down the court.) or try a spinning class or go skating.
Running year in and year out, even for those of us who love it, can feel like a chore now and again. Everyone has days when the hardest part of the run is lacing up the shoes. That’s why once a year or so it seems to me to make sense to take a break and let it go for a while.
There are a lot of reasons I suggest this. First of all, it is good for your body. Running is a high impact sport. It is also repetitive, making runners susceptible to overuse injuries and stress fractures. Taking a week or so off allows the tiny tears in your muscles to heal. It gives your bones a rest.
Second, it gets your mind out of its running rut. Take your time off to think a little bit about your past year. Winter is usually the downside of most runners’ years, so looking at spring as the start of your running year makes a lot of sense. Coming into it fresh and with some new and different goals could give you the energy and boost you need to achieve them.
Third, you may discover in your time off that you want to keep mixing in some of the activities you substituted. Perhaps you took a yoga class and can see where the stretching and balancing you learn there will make you a stronger runner. Spinning, or bicycling, made you realize you have quads in a way running had not done for you in the past.
Then of course, there’s the old cliché “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” There’s a reason why so many of those clichés are so old; they’re true. Now, this one is debatable, I agree. Too much absence leads you to yet another cliché: “out of sight, out of mind.” Remember, I’m not advocating for you to hang up your running shoes in the back of the closet and forget about them. Just take off enough time so that you miss it, so that when you head out for your first run after your “groundhog vacation,” you feel rested, light on your feet, and eager to get out on the road or trail.
Here is a very important caveat. Whenever you take off some time from running, you need to start back carefully. If you just take off a week, and if you participate in some other aerobic sport, you can get back to where you were without too much trouble. Do not take off a week or more, however, and then make your first run back a long run, or a race where you run all out.
Unfortunately, you lose fitness at a much more rapid rate than you gain it. Even just a week of total inactivity will cause some decrease in your fitness level. That is why I suggest doing something in place of running should you take a break.
In the book Inside Running, Dr. David Costill states that generally, “there is no loss [of fitness] for five to seven days. As a matter of fact, running performance may even be improved after two to five days of inactivity. Such rest periods allow the muscles and nervous system to recover and rebuild from the stress of training and provide the runner with improved energy reserves and tolerance of endurance exercise.”
As runners, we revel in nature. We find beauty in all seasons, savoring nature’s constantly changing landscape. We derive solace from its vast forces, the winds that pummel us and the vivid sunrises that have rewarded our early morning efforts. We are inspired by the intricacies of a leaf spied while stopped to tie a shoe, or a feather in our path.
Nature sets aside time to rest. The groundhog symbolizes that the length of that resting time changes from year to year. Some years, we train through the seasons, running on toward our goals, or perhaps just from our demons. In other years, we need to stop running for a while. Farmers know that fields need to rest in order to produce bountiful crops in season. Gardeners know that many bulbs and trees need to be dormant in order to survive. Forcing such a tree into an “eternal summer” is ultimately stressful to it.
Maybe it’s time for you to take a break and sit out a run or two. Punxsutawney Phil’s website explains that groundhogs are one of the few animals that really hibernate. Hibernation is not for humans, of course, but we can figure out a satisfactory equivalent. One of my favorite baseball player-philosophers, Satchel Paige, was on the right track when he explained that: “sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.” Consider allowing yourself a “running dormancy.” The American Heritage Science Dictionary defines dormancy as “a state of not being active but capable of renewed activity.” Relax, reflect, rest, and then run renewed.