Spring workout, take it out

March 16th, 2009 at 03:47pm Mike DeDoncker

Unless we have some decidedly un-springlike weather, I’ll be somewhere on the Sinnissippi Bike Path when spring officially arrives at 6:44 a.m. Friday.

I’ve been getting outside to run in a — mostly — straight line now for a couple of weeks after spending the winter going around in ovals and abusing my hips on the YMCA’s indoor track. When I gave up racing — not like I was a threat to beat anyone in my age group — a little over five years ago I also gave up running outdoors in anything colder than 20 degrees above zero.

I’ve read several articles about how exercising outdoors in cold weather helps build your resistance to wintertime ailments — and when I ran outside in winter, I rarely had a cold or the flu — but just couldn’t continue to push myself out the door when I knew I wasn’t training for anything specific.

Now, instead of just feeling the moderating temperatures, spring running is kind of a jailbreak for me and that makes it all the more fun. My hips sure appreciate it, anyway.

So let me encourage you to take your workout outside. It’s getting to be that time.

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