Running Around Illinois: Morton Arboretum 2023

October 7, 2023

Fall Color 5K

Lisle (DuPage County)

Chip Time: 27:16

As I wrote last year, the Fall Color 5K is my favorite race. This was the 6th 5K I’ve run at Morton Arboretum, plus two 10Ks I ran a few years ago.

On the one hand, I was disappointed to run it a little slower than last year (26:43). On the other, the race started a little rough, and I felt like I finished fairly strong, and this year I’m planning on not breaking my collarbone, so I think I’ve got a sub-27 race in me yet this fall.

I want to write a bit here about this particular race, but mostly about how I’ve been running lately generally, and how I think the fall could go. First, though, a word about the name of the race.

The nominal idea of a “fall color” race at the arboretum is that we would see something kind of like this:

But that’s not how it worked. There was a little yellow, a tiny bit of orange… it felt like fall, because the race time temp was in the 40s, but it sure didn’t look like October. Morton Arboretum is one of the places best poised to evaluate what climate change literally looks like - they actually publish a weekly fall color report and this is what the picture from this last week’s report looked like:

All that said, if you’re in the area and get the chance, you definitely want to make it out there in the next couple of weeks. And along the way think some about what exactly it means that the seasons are not quite what they were. And what we might do about it.

I left my house at 7:03, had a clear drive, and when I arrived at the arboretum, it took me about 20 minutes to park! For an 8:00 start time this was most unfortunate.

I got up to about where I wanted for the start, but I didn’t get in all of my usual stretching, and I wound up wedged in a spot where people weren’t really running at the pace I would have hoped for early on. And there are a lot of people who run this race, so energy spent early on in dodging and juking can chew up seconds pretty fast. Compounding this is that it’s the first kilometer which is the most uphill.

I think I hit the first mile at about 8:45. And my app says my splits for the second and third miles were both 8:57. And at the end, I felt pretty good. I felt like I could have kept going. I wonder if another 10K might be in the cards in the next year.

The thing I’ve found I’m not doing as well as I have in the past is rhythmic breathing. Turns out I also wrote about this very thing last year. The thing is, I don’t really read a lot about all this, I’ve worked out most of my approach to running just by, you know, running. But also I think the problem here has to do with my training, so I’m going to jump straight into that:

When I started running in earnest 8 years ago, my regimen was remarkably simple. I would either run or ride an exercise bike multiple days a week. I did some very light weight work with dumbbells but that was about it.

That fall, and then into the winter and following spring, I got to where I was running 4+ miles a day 4+ days a week. At one point the scale claimed I weighed 153 pounds. My weight loss leveled off but for quite a while I was hovering in the high 160s, which had never been typical for me.

Today, for a number of reasons, that’s not what my regimen is like, nor is that what my body is like. I weigh about 190, with more fat but also a lot more muscle. Because of my bulging discs, I work out 5+ days a week, but my primary focus is weights, mostly upper body and some core.

The running I tend to get in is at the gym, on the treadmill, and it’s legitimate exercise, but it’s not perfect preparation for running a race outside. When I started running, I would typically run to a nearby park, run multiple loops around the park, and then run home. Where we live now, while that is technically doable, I find that for whatever reason I really dislike running in the neighborhood. And since I need to get to the gym anyway for the upper body work, I tend to mostly stick to the treadmill.

A typical week recently then involves running about 3 miles about once a week. I also do some leg weight work, and I guess I’d say I’m more powerful, but I’m also heavier, and my lung capacity is lousy. And the treadmill… the cardio is fine, but there’s something about it which doesn’t really address building the lung capacity.

Beyond strength building, I’ve also tried to focus on flexibility. I have a nightly stretching regimen for my legs, largely to address how my calves will get super tight. Even there though what I’ve found in the past that if I do run, my legs can hurt a lot at night. I mentioned in February how I’d found compression socks, but since then I found something which I think works even better for me: compression sleeves.

I do not understand the biomechanics very well at all. But compression apparently enhances circulation and that enhances recovery. And I can vouch for it all. I now have two pairs and I find them helpful not just for running but also on days which I know will involve a lot of walking.

On the one hand even as I write paragraphs like these I think, this has got to be super boring to most people. On the other hand this is stuff I figured out on my own without really talking it through with anyone I know, and I guess if I understood how to use social media anymore, I would have liked to have discussed more of this somewhere. So hey, maybe it’s actually valuable to someone! And what is META-SPIEL ultimately if not a reflexive value proposition?

Anywaysies: I’m still hoping to get at least 4 more races in before the end of 2023, and for the first two weekends in November in particular I’m looking to get to a new county. If by any chance anyone knows of evening runs that would be great. (That’s one of the few drawbacks of the otherwise excellent Running in the USA site, you have to click through to a race’s website to find what time it’s at.)

And I know what you’re thinking: Yeah, but what about the pizza? Hold yr hroses, kids, that’ll be coming up next!