Try These Now to Hit the Ground “Running” in Spring Sure, I barely published a Winter Running blog post and sent out my February newsletter on the last day of the month (thank you, Leap Year), but I’m ready to “leap” into Spring. Read on for 3 ways to turbocharge your spring running, by resting,…
If one of your New Year’s resolutions this year was health-related, you’re not alone. Now at the end of February, you’d also be in good company if you found yourself feeling burned out from those resolutions. Instead of offering Winter running tips to help you push through and hit your resolutions, I suggest a different approach. To find more joy in the Winter season, use it as a natural time to recover and rebuild.
Why the Best Winter Running Tip is to Shift Your MindsetIf your goal for 2024 is real change, it needs to be built gradually, and consistently, so that it actually sticks for longer than a few weeks. This is why having a training plan tailored to your goals is so helpful: it sets you up for success and helps you avoid burnout!
Another great way to avoid burnout is to ensure that you have meaningful periods of rest both during your training program, and in between training programs. Our modern culture emphasizes constant achievement, in everything from our careers, to our relationships, to our training. But no one can be at the top of their game all of the time, not even professional athletes. This is a recipe for burnout. Mentally and physically, we need time to recharge. This is why training programs always include periods of rest, both within the program, and between programs.
If you can’t remember your last easy week, now is a great time to have one. Start by decreasing the intensity, duration, or frequency of your workouts. Is it single digits outside? Freezing rain? Ice? Take some guilt-free time off, and don’t sweat it. Your fitness level won’t be negatively impacted by a day off, here or there. If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re already highly motivated in your training, which means you almost certainly need more easy days than you’re giving yourself. If you want to stay active and healthy long-term, learn how to rest and relax, too.
Like everything else in life, the Winter season is temporary; Spring will be here soon! I encourage you to try these winter running tips for yourself, and enjoy the rest, coziness, and (albeit cold) beauty of Winter, while it’s here.
Ready to level up your running? Reach out for a free consultation for individualized, virtual, 1:1 coaching with me!
Turkey Trot races have become a favorite Thanksgiving Day tradition for many, including my family. This year, we’re excited to take our Golden Retriever, Bodhi, on his first “Dog Jog,” a 1 mile fun run on Thanksgiving Day. It will be his first race ever! Whether a Turkey Trot is in your future, or you just need some good cold weather running gear, it’s all here.
The most important piece of gear for any runner is shoes. If you’re in need of some new ones, I’m still swearing by my Hoka Cliftons. I’ve worn them for years and years–not this specific pair, though: make sure you change shoes every 400 miles or 12 months, whichever is sooner. Shop around for some Black Friday deals; Amazon has both Men’s and Women’s styles.
Socks are another staple, and having the right pair can make a big difference to your run! Pick a pair that feels good in the shoes you plan to run, that doesn’t bunch around your toes or slip down your ankles. It should also be a synthetic material so that it wicks sweat away from your feet to dry. Running in cotton is a recipe for blisters.
Stance makes my favorite running socks at the moment! Their Cyber Sale is happening 11/17-11/23, where you can get up to 40% off and free shipping on orders $49+. Pick up these performance tab socks, which come in multiple thicknesses and tons of colors.
As the weather gets colder, this Notch Thermal Headband from Brooks is my go-to. It keeps my ears warm, without interfering with a ponytail, and it doesn’t ride up or gap like other running headbands do. Pictured here is proof that I do wear it in LA– I wore it to last year’s Turkey Trot! Ryan is wearing the Brooks Notch Thermal Beanie, too. Both are on sale for 25% off on Amazon as of this post!
Gloves are also a necessity for me. Since Manhattan Beach is seaside, we do get some chilly winter weather. It’s still very benign compared to other parts of the US, but temps below 60 can definitely cause chapped, cracked hands, and no one wants that. I’m still running in these Nike gloves I’ve had for years. Last year I bought some Patagonia gloves that are great for everyday, running, and dog walking. Speaking of our four-legged friends…
To prep for Bodhi’s first Dog Jog, we bought him a new harness and new leash from Ruffwear. These are specially designed for running so they are lightweight and less likely to chafe! A new harness was a must for us because his current harness is a martingale type, meaning it could accidentally constrict him when he running, which we don’t want! We picked the Hi & Light Harness.
We also needed a different leash because his current one is pretty heavy. It’s great for daily walks, but for running, we picked the Roamer Bungee Leash. It has a hands-free option, stretchiness for a smoother run, and a traffic handle in case we need to keep him close.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a small commission if you make a purchase. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This income goes to supporting this website. As always, ideas and opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.
Now in November, we’re nearing the end of the Fall racing season. Many runners like to take some well-earned time to recover during the Winter, but if you’re training for a Spring race, your program is just starting. Need some running motivation for those cold, dark Winter months? Read on to learn how I beat a common mental block, and the iconic catchphrase that helps.
A common mental block in running, (and in other aspects of life), is to wait until you feel motivated before taking action. But what if you never feel motivated? What if, the secret to feeling motivated, is to just get started anyway? Our bodies and minds are intrinsically connected, and they influence each other. Just as you can use psychology to tap into your body, say, challenging yourself in training, you can use this connection the other way round. You can use your body to influence and change your mind-state.
You just don’t feel like lacing up and going outside. Should you really wait until you feel like it?
However, I’m not talking about ignoring or pushing through aches, pains, or illness. It’s always important to listen to your body, and seek professional, medical attention when necessary. This hack is purely for those days where you could go for your run, but you don’t feel like it–at the moment! In all likelihood, once you get started– and especially at the end– you’re going to be glad you did.
I love a good pump-up song, but I don’t think you ever want to be reliant on something external to motivate you for your run. In fact– and this might sound counterintuitive– one thing I swear by is never running with music. This forces me to be totally in the moment, enjoying the run and the world around me. It helps me tune into what my body is feeling, and what it’s needing. So much of our days can be filled with stuff and to-do’s; running with music, in my opinion, is just layering more noise onto the experience. If you feel like you just can’t run without music, that could be a sign that you’re pushing yourself too much, and running isn’t something you really enjoy for its own sake. Try running without music on your next run, and find out what your experience of running is, just by itself.
If you enjoy what you’re doing, you won’t need to rely on external conditions being “just right.”
I love challenging myself with a faster pace, longer distances, or a sprint workout. But I truly enjoy the process of running, and I never run something just to “get it over with.” To me, that’s not a great way to go through life. Since running is something “optional,” why should it be treated like a chore? Sure, it’s great to set goals, but crossing the finish line and hitting that PR are such small moments in the grand scheme of running, and most of your time is spent in your weekly training runs. If you’re living for your goal, consistently treating running like a chore, it’s a recipe for burnout. This ultimately makes it so much harder to meet your goals! However, if you enjoy what you’re doing, then your motivation is intrinsic, and you won’t need to rely on external conditions being “just right.” So I want to encourage you to make enjoyment your primary goal for any run or race you do.
To cultivate joy in your run, first reflect on your current relationship with running. Ask yourself questions like:
Perhaps this is why Nike’s famous slogan, “Just Do It,” is so impactful. With great simplicity, it cuts straight through all excuses, mental blocks, and attachment to goals and gets right to the point. To me, it means that if you want something, don’t wait for external things to fall in to place, don’t even wait for motivation, “Just Do It.” And why should you do it? For the enjoyment of it.
Ready to level up your running? Reach out for a free consultation for individualized, virtual, 1:1 coaching with me!
If you’ve never heard of it, a race-cation is a vacation you plan around your race, usually in a unique destination city. This is actually how I’ve run most of my half marathons! It’s a great way to get excited for a race, and explore a new city. When else do you run around a city on foot for 13.1 miles?! You get to see a lot of a city this way, in a short amount of time. Today I’m highlighting 4 destination Half Marathons in early 2024, so you have plenty of time to plan and train for them. Check it out!
>And if you’re ready to crush your goals with a personalized coaching plan, click here.<
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you make a purchase. I would never recommend anything I wouldn’t personally use, and the income goes to keeping this site updated and free for everyone!
Stay cool and dry on those hot summer training runs with the best warm weather running gear from Stance. These are my picks for the season of Sun.
Subscribe to Stance.com email list and get 20% off your first order, code will arrive via email
These are my go-to running socks, with the perfect tab height and a reinforced heel (my previous socks would always wear through at the heel!).
I like the Ultralight Cushion or Light Cushion for runs, and the Medium Cushion for everyday wear.
Stance Performance Quarter Socks
Kinectic 5 Panel Adjustable Cap
These hats are gender-neutral and come in a variety of color ways to best match your style while keeping the sun off your face and out of your eyes.
Depending on your climate, you’re probably going to wear shorts on your runs this summer. These will keep you cool; just remember to sunscreen your legs!
Womens’ Work It Out Athletic ShortThese shorts are 2-in1, with an outer shell that sports tunnel storage (to stash your tank when you need to pull it off mid-run!), and a detachable compression short that has a side cell phone pocket. Comes in REBELROSE, which I love, or Black.
Flux Liner Athletic ShortThis men’s short has a long, mid-compression liner underneath and zip, hip, and liner pockets, which are clutch! They come in this Green Camo color, Black, and Heat, a cool black-lime-coral graphic pattern.
Complex Athletic ShortIf you prefer shorts without a liner, keep it simple and opt for the “Complex” Athletic Short.
Since they’re linerless, you’ll probably want performance briefs. Luckily for you, Stance has those, too.
Stance Performance Boxer Brief with Wholester
Before you lace up and head out the door, toss on one of these shirts (or not).
Fragment Performance T-Shirt
Womens’ Get Set Performance Tank Top
I got an Oura ring in June 2022, after several months of debate. What finally pushed me to buy one was getting COVID on a vacation to Hawaii, which ruined the trip. I knew Oura was being used by the NBA to provide early COVID-19 detection, and wondered if it could have alerted me to impending sickness. I was also drawn to the amount of biomarkers that it tracks, and its super small (and stylish) form factor. Now 7 months into using my Oura ring, I wanted to share a review. TLDR; the Oura Ring is my favorite wearable, having measurably improved my sleep and performance. Get one now!
Firstly, much of the hype IS worth it! The amount of data available from a small and nonintrusive wearable is impressive. The ring comes in multiple sizes, but it could take a little trial and error to find the right fit. I ended up buying the smallest size Oura ring because I knew it would fit more fingers and give me more options. Still, I moved the ring around the first couple months and finally settled on the middle finger of my right hand. You may find your finger gets waterlogged where the ring is; Oura recommends to slide the ring up and down your finger after hand washing, to dry off the whole finger, and this helps!
Sleep was one of the features I was most excited about. Oura does not disappoint, providing both a Sleep Score and a Readiness Score each morning. The Sleep Score takes into account your total sleep, efficiency (percentage of time you’re in bed and asleep), restfulness (amount of movement during sleep), REM and Deep sleep, latency (how long it takes you to fall asleep), and timing (when you went to sleep). It provides breakdowns of when you had light/REM/deep sleep, and when you woke up or moved during the night. It tracks average oxygen saturation with SPO2, as well as heart rate and heart rate variability.
Before getting the Oura Ring, I had difficulty sleeping, and thought I might have a sleep disorder. Instead of seeing a sleep neurologist, I now have months of data with Oura to analyze. Using Oura, I learned that I was having objectively great sleep, yet I was still feeling tired, leading me to question whether I was getting sick, or not. Why am I still tired? What can I do about it? The Readiness Score has answers.
Oura’s Readiness Score uses multiple factors to assess your overall “readiness” and suggest an amount of activity for that day. This helps me decide what type and intensity of workout to apply. The score accounts for resting heart rate, HRV balance, body temperature, recovery index, sleep, sleep balance, previous day activity, and activity balance. Through this score and component breakdown, I learned that I had no “easy” days for several weeks, even if I didn’t run at all. My daily activity outside of actual workouts was too high. As I looked closer, I realized where I was overdoing it, and made small changes, from how I walk my Golden Retriever, to which days I do chores, to giving myself more time to just relax. Simple, yet effective!
Still, I felt tired in the morning. I learned that I can’t make up for going to bed “late” by sleeping longer. My middle school teacher once said that the hours of sleep before midnight are the best, and she was on to something. In fact, Oura measures “recovery index” as how long it takes for your resting heart rate to stabilize during the night. Oura says that, ideally, this should happen in the first half of the night, at least 6 hours before you wake up the next day. For most people, this probably places the target several hours before midnight. So, I’ve started going to bed a little earlier each night, and am now going to bed a full hour earlier than before. When I go to bed earlier, it also takes me LESS time to fall asleep! Win-win.
WOMEN’S FEATURES
A few months after my Oura purchase, they partnered with Natural Cycles. Natural Cycles is a natural, hormone-free, FDA-cleared fertility and birth control app which uses basal body temperature to track your cycle. This was a homerun for me, and something I was hoping Oura would add since before I bought it. Before the partnership, Natural Cycles required you to take your temperature first thing in the morning, within a specific time frame, and enter it into the app. Now, Oura syncs this data seamlessly with Natural Cycles. It’s simply amazing. I’ve been using Natural Cycles for 3 years now, and wish I had switched off hormonal birth control sooner. The Oura ring also uses your temperature fluctuations to predict your period start. I was already using Natural Cycles for this, so now I cross-check several apps to triangulate my start date. I guess that’s my engineer showing.
When I bought the Oura ring, I was super hopeful it would help me answer whether some malaise is due to sickness, stress, over-training, my period, or Mercury Retrograde. However, Oura did not pick up on the fact that I was sick this year (not COVID, just a bad cold). I tagged my illness in the Oura app, so maybe it will pick up on future illness earlier. I’m hopeful that future Oura upgrades will be able to detect mild illness without a fever. That said, the Readiness Score provides a good barometer for when to have a hard workout, a moderate or easy workout, or a rest day, to prevent exhaustion and susceptibility to illness.
While Oura has added workout heart rate features, it cannot replace a running watch, so I’m keeping my Garmin. Obviously the Garmin has a wrist-mounted display while the Oura doesn’t, and has greater GPS capability, so Oura will always take a backseat to realtime workout monitoring with a Garmin. But, Oura can now track workout heart rate and pick up when it thinks you’re doing a workout without you having to enter it into the app, which is great! It’s not accurate enough to really train against, but since it has your heart rate and just about every other metric, I think it would be good to pair workout training on your Garmin with Readiness on the Oura.
Sleep-wise, I’m really interested in how Oura could be used for sleep disorder diagnosis and/or management. Already, Oura analyzes your SPO2 and notes any breathing irregularities–a good measurement to watch as a possible indicator of sleep apnea. I’d love to see Oura integrated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI) methods. For example, could Oura use your sleep data to inform your CBTI protocol, telling you when to go to sleep or wake up accordingly when adjusting your sleep cycle.
I’d also love to see more insights related to the menstrual cycle. Oura already provides insights regarding elevated temperature and resting heart rate during the second half of the menstrual cycle, and timing harder workouts at the front end of the menstrual cycle. But how much weight should this carry when making a training plan? I can’t wait to see Oura’s next software (and hardware!) evolutions!
The Oura is a fantastic wearable that’s small, stylish, and accurate. No other wearable provides insight into as many biomarkers and data with the accuracy that Oura does. It’s not a replacement for a running watch, but it is a nice complement that can help you track your body’s readiness and help you get to the next level of performance. If you’ve ever struggled with sleep, getting the Oura is a no-brainer.
Health and longevity are areas of my budget where there’s practically no limit. More and more I realize that I can either spend now on something preventative and more “fun,” or spend later, in a not-so-fun way. $350 for an Oura Ring and better sleep? You’d be hard pressed to pay just that in one visit to a sleep neurologist. Do yourself a favor and buy the Oura Ring now. Then let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a small commission if you make a purchase. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This income goes to supporting this website. As always, ideas and opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.
If you’re a fan of biohacking, several wearables can track your sleep stages, sleep quality, and other biometrics to analyze your recovery and ability to perform. I’m using the Oura Ring and it’s really helped me understand how I’m sleeping, and what impacts my sleep and overall performance readiness, so I can adjust accordingly. After more than 6 months of using mine, I can say it lives up to the hype and the cost is well worth it!
The Forerunner series is my favorite, and Garmin just released the Forerunner 955 which includes the “Body Battery” readiness indicator. This is something I can’t wait to purchase, and I’m hoping for a Black Friday discount!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a small commission if you make a purchase. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This income goes to supporting this website. As always, ideas and opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a small commission if you make a purchase. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This income goes to supporting this website. As always, ideas and opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.
