Deep cold…

I’ve written a few posts on winter running but following this week’s speed workout, I have a new bit to add. It generally needs to be extremely cold, under twenty degrees and/or blowing snow, for me to cover my face with a Buff or neck gaiter. Now, I have an exception.

For my speed work, the temperature was in the upper twenties and I wouldn’t have considered wearing a face wrap except that since I was pushing myself at a faster pace, I was going to be breathing in a lot harder than a normal training run. In a 5K several years ago, it was twenty-three degrees at the start of the race. I didn’t wear a face wrap and after red-lining my lungs for three point one miles, I could feel the cold deep down in them. I rarely drink hot tea but I had some when I got home that day to help thaw out. It was a couple of hours before I felt normal again.

Remembering that experience plus several others, I didn’t want to freeze my lungs this week but I also didn’t want to cover my face during the speed work as that restricts my breathing and slows me down. I experimented with a compromise. I wore the face wrap on my warm-up run, discarded it for the track work (4X800 with one-minute rests between them) and then put it back on for the cool-down run. When I got back home, my lungs felt normal. While I did the most intense running without the wrap, I think wearing it ahead of time and afterwards prevented the deep-cold feeling in the lungs, while allowing me to hit my goal times.

Going forward, for a race or speed work I’ll err on the side of a face wrap when the temperatures are cold with the same pattern: wearing it during the warm-up and cool-down segments. Feeling a chill deep in the lungs isn’t much fun, and there’s an easy solution.