This week, I began training for the annual Hypothermic Half Marathon. This will be the sixth time I’ve ran this particular race, which generally falls on one of the chilliest weekends of the year, as you can see from the photo above (last year’s race temp). And before you call me crazy (or masochistic), I’m hardly the only runner to brave the bitter cold: this race is so popular in Edmonton that it’s held here twice! I’ll be running the Hypo Half 1 on Feb 2, 2020; the Hypo Half 2 is on Feb 16, 2020. Both races start and finish at the Highlands Golf Course, include a walking and 10K options, and participants receive a winter-themed finisher’s medal and one of the best post-race brunches I’ve ever had.
The Hypothermic Half Marathon has been around since 2003, and takes place from January to March in Calgary, Red Deer, Saskatoon, Regina, Abbotsford, Kelowna, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Sudbury, Montreal, Halifax, Moncton, Saint John, St. John’s, and even Minnesota. This year there’s a Virtual Race option, so you can race from any location in Canada or the US. This is a race you don't run to set a Personal Best: between the inevitable ice, snow, and possibly biting winds, it's a race you run to survive, and once you have, to gloat about your bad-assery to all of your astonished couch-potato friends. This is a race you'll feel a massive sense of accomplishment about finishing. Entering the Hypo Half keeps me motivated to train throughout the winter, when I might otherwise keep hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock and waiting for the weather to turn warmer to go outside and run. When I know I have to survive a whole 21.1K in temperatures that could be as low as -40C (-40F) you bet that motivates me to get my butt out the door! Another way I keep myself accountable and on track in the winter is to train with a group. The past few years, I’ve signed up for the Hypothermic Half Marathon Training Program through the Running Room. Even though I’ve gone through this training program a number of times, and run this race before, I enjoy the built-in camaraderie of a group of recreational runners who can share in the trials and fails and pains and bliss of running through an Edmonton winter. If you’ve never run in the winter before, or even if you have, I highly recommend joining a program or group. Sharing is caring! Our group this year includes veterans of multiple Hypo Halves and other half marathons like myself, several people who have chosen this race as their first half marathon, and some folks who are trying to get back into running after taking time off due to busy lives or injury. Over the next few months, I’ll post weekly updates about our training including the planned training distances, the distances I actually ran, winter running wisdom we learn during our weekly meetings, anything fun that happens along the way. After the race, I’ll provide a race review. This week, our training schedule looked like this: Oct 6 OFF, Oct 8 OFF, Oct 9 3K Tempo, Oct 10 3K Steady, Oct 11 OFF, Oct 12 3K Steady. My actual runs were: Oct 6 5K, Oct 8 7K Steady, Oct 9 6K Tempo, Oct 10 4.7K Steady, Oct 11 OFF, Oct 12 OFF. Winter hasn't arrived here just yet, so temps were pretty good at between -8C (17F) and 5C (41F): no snow, some rain, lots of wind. My running varied a bit from the suggested training, because the Running Room training program starts off mildly to accommodate those runners who haven’t been training consistently or aren’t used to running long distances. The program ramps up over the next sixteen weeks, plus we’ll be adding in hill training in Week 7, which I hate while doing it but love once it’s race day and I’m Super Fast! Just kidding, I’m far from speedy, but hill training definitely improves my race times. And life forces me to swap my training days around: for example, I usually have time to run on Monday nights during my children's activities, while I rarely have time to run on Saturdays. And you'll see a whole lot more schedule juggling during the holidays! So if you're training for this race, thinking about running it in the future, or just want to know more about winter running, join me here every week for my Hypo Half Training Update.
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AuthorKathy Istace runs and races in one of the coldest cities on earth. Archives
December 2020
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