I love the in between seasons for running: Spring and Fall. If I had to pick one, I would pick Spring. Spring, with the returning birds, returning sunshine (sometimes), the flower and flowering trees — it’s just so hopeful. It’s entertaining stalking all those signs of Spring!
Shedding layers
There comes a point when you’re just so over running in #allthelayers. You feel like a bundled up kid — it’s heavy, and it restricts movement. Like a caterpillar slowly making its way out of its cocoon, the warming temps of Spring allow us to ditch all the layers.
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns, though, because the mornings in early Spring can be pretty darn Winter-like. It takes a while for those longer days to start warming the roads (especially if there’s still snow on the ground), so as I wrote about in Prepping for Spring here, it’s not quite time to put away all your warm running clothes.
New sights
I don’t know about you, but I really struggle to find something to photograph on Winter runs. Often it’s really gray. There’s little wildlife and no pretty flowers.
As Spring begins to unfurl its leaves. there’s literally beauty everywhere around you. Even though we often seem to skip Spring and go straight into Summer, at some point the trees will have leaves, they’ll flower, and the Spring bulbs will bloom.
I have so much fun hunting down the signs of Spring, too!
Lightening the load
You could take that almost literally, as in the days are getting longer and the sun is putting in an appearance more often — both things that just put a smile on my face.
As we move further into Spring, though, I no longer need leggings with skirt. Then I can move on to capris. And one day it’s time to run in a skirt again! There is such a sense of freedom running in a skirt — not to mention not having to be on the lookout for black ice.
Speaking of it’s not all rainbows . . .
The pretty flowers and flowering trees come at a price: for some that’s allergies, and for most of us that’s rain. Spring is often very wet, and when I lived in VT, it was known as mud season — for good reason!
I enjoy a nice run in a warm rain, but cold rain is the worst.
Can we talk about that wind? Spring comes roaring through some days — literally!
Time to race, anyone?
Spring is one of my favorite times to race. Races are sparse in Winter in these parts – but that oh so fickle weather can also get you in Spring races. Not to mention the Pandemic still chugging along.
Take stock of how you trained through the Winter. Are you really race ready, even if all you want to do is have fun? Consider building a base if you haven’t run as much during Winter. Have you kept up with strength training? Now is definitely the time to get back to it!
Consider hiring a coach to help you ease back into racing. We’ve got some great ones in these linkups!
You may also like 5 Spring Running Tips here
What’s your Spring weather like?
Do you have RL racing opportunities?
Enjoying (or sneezing through) the Spring flowers?
Linking up with Zenaida Arroyo and Kim @ Kookyrunner
This week I am also joining up with the new Runners’ Roundup linkup.
If I’m outside running, I can almost guarantee you that at some point I’m writing a post about running in my head. It’s probably a great post, too. If I could actually remember it by the time I get home! When it’s warmer, sometimes I’ll actually stop and make a note on my phone when I have a good idea — that’s harder to do in Winter, when all I really want to do is get home so I can put on my nice warm clothes and drink hot chocolate. But I’ll try!
better to be positive, but sometimes we just have to get things off our chests, #amiright? Running through a Pandemic definitely has not been easy! I feel blessed that I’ve never been on a lockdown that meant I couldn’t leave my home — even though I am grateful for my treadmill, I don’t want to have to run on it all the time. Which is pretty funny, like many runners I only ran on the treadmill when I first started running.
