One of my favorite memories as a collegiate track athlete came one fall. Following a cross country workout my coach, Mark Wetmore, commented on the light and how it was different than just a few days earlier and how it reminded him of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “There’s a certain slant of light.” He then went on to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), simply making the point that we all sense the “slant of light” and that for many people it has consequences. What’s my point? If you’re in the northern hemisphere, chances are that you’ll soon be dealing with inclement running weather as well as fewer daylight hours to get your run in (though I know that many people are forced to get their daily run in during the dark hours). Thus, my suggestion is twofold.
First, make sure that you not only find the time to run the next couple of weeks, but that you fully appreciate the air, the smells and the environment around you, even if you don’t like running in your current climate’s weather. That brings me to my second point—you as a runner have a unique opportunity to experience weather and nature all year long. Now, I must admit that I hate both sub-freezing long runs in January as well as any days where I’m running and it’s over 85 degrees (obviously I’d struggle to live a lot of place with that second one), but I truly enjoy the opportunity to run in all of the conditions that my climate has to offer.
I’ll be coming back to this idea in a few weeks with training tips especially for cold weather training. In the mean time you can enjoy these photos of Fall from various parts of the northern hemisphere (from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture page).