Running and Reynaud's

Reynaud's Syndrome: After running in 40 degrees

Do your hands and/or feet turn white when they are cold? If so, you may have Reynaud's Syndrome. Reynaud's Syndrome is a condition that causes your fingers and toes to go numb and turn white when they are cold; and it's doesn't even have to be that cold. The condition is more common in women than in men and there's no known cure, although there are some medications that can help relieve symptoms.

I was born with blue feet. My feet are often extremely cold, even at room temperature. Greg once joked that he didn't need to get a fan for his computer, because I could simply put my feet near the computer when he was using it. I'm also very fortunate that Greg lets me put my ice cold feet on his warm legs, which feels amazing to me, but not so great for him.

While my feet tend to suffer worse than my hands, they are actually completely fine while running. A few months ago, I went to a winery with some friends. It was about 55 degrees outside but because I wasn't moving around, both of my feet turned completely white and it was challenging to walk on them. At the New York City marathon in 2010, my feet turned numb while waiting to race, and they didn't regain feeling until three miles in. But once I'm running, my feet end up being totally fine.

My hands are an entirely different story. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably noticed many pictures in which I'm in a tank top or short sleeves, but I'm wearing gloves or even mittens. You've probably also heard me say that my body gets extra hot when I run, particularly my face, so I'm comfortable racing in a tank if it's 40 degrees, but once the temperature gets above 55, my performance is impacted. I would LOVE to take some of that extra heat and channel it to my hands, but my body's distribution system is way out of wack. In fact, after yesterday's run, my hands were freezing but my face was burning up. I solved both issues by putting my hands on my forehead.

After years of trial and error, I've finally found a solution to running in temperatures from 0-50 degrees. My savior has been Little Hotties hand warmers. When you open them, heat releases and they last for 8 hours. I go through several boxes of those each winter. I rotate having them in front of my fingers or behind them throughout the run. Here is my solution to Reynaud's Syndrome when running in the cold:

• 45-50 degrees: lightweight gloves
• 40-44 degrees: heavy gloves or light convertible mittens with hand warmers in them
• 33-39 degrees: heavy mittens or light convertible mittens with hand warmers in them
• 26-32 degrees: heavy convertible mittens with hand warmers in them
• 20-25 degrees: heavy convertible mittens with light gloves under them, plus a pair of hand warmers
• 5-19 degrees: heavy convertible mittens with light gloves under them, plus two pairs of hand warmers: one pair for the front of my fingers, one pair for the back.

It's important to note that mittens are way more effective than gloves. If it's below 40 then gloves

alone no longer work for me. I recently spent $40 on a pair of Under Armour gloves that advertised

Tank top with mittens + hand warmers

high-tech materials to shelter against extreme cold and wind. They failed miserably (within 5 minutes) when I tried to wear them in 27 degree temperatures. They work for the low 40's particularly if it's raining because they are somewhat waterproof.

Even with the system that I've figured out above, there are a few challenges. First, my fingers sometimes still turn white and numb if the run is longer than 45 minutes. And even if they don't turn white, I lose dexterity throughout the run. Afterwards, I often cannot use my hands until I run them under warm water for 3-4 minutes. Running my hands under warm water is the fastest way to restore feeling and dexterity.

Another problem is carrying water during long runs. I refuse to wear a water belt, and my preference is to carry my water. When it dips below 40, the water becomes cold (even though I start the run with very hot water from the faucet) and I can't hold it. I've tried different solutions for this like insulated bottles, but those aren't as comfortable to carry, especially if I'm already wearing gloves. My solution to this is to park my car along my long run route and stop at a few times for water.

When I ran the B & A Trail Marathon two years ago, it was only 25 degrees so I was unable to hold a water bottle. At the time, I was using Honey Stinger gels, and I needed to be able to drink water when it was time to take my gels, instead of waiting for the water stations. Thankfully, Greg was able to

Blue and white fingers after a long run

meet me at 4 points along the course and hand me a new water bottle. I could hold it for about five minutes before I needed to toss it.

I've noticed that my Reynaud's Syndrome has worsened with age. My fingers turn white from driving if the steering wheel is cold. My toes turn white simply from hanging around the house and doing nothing. I've looked into the medication, but the possible side effects sound worse to me than just dealing with it. It's a circulation issue, so I wonder if this is related to how easily I over heat, even if it's only 60 degrees.  The condition isn't serious, it's basically just an annoyance that I've learned to live with.

Cold Weather Running Musings

The big news in the Washington D.C. metro area is that it's cold! Yes, temperatures are below average but it's really nothing that should be seen as out of the ordinary. This weather is to be expected in mid-January and I can deal with it. I have to admit I do start to complain when it's 80 degrees in March or if there's 50 MPH winds or something out of the ordinary. But weather that's perfectly in line with the time of year and not some extreme weather event doesn't at all bother me.

And with that, I present some observations and opinions on marathon training in winter weather.

Having the Right Tools
An analogy my sports psychologist frequently uses is that of having the right "tools" to handle certain situations. He says that if it's 20 degrees out and all you have on is shorts and a t-shirt, you won't feel prepared to go outside. But if you have a warm coat and some gloves, then you'd feel better about the situation. Kind of obvious, but it's useful to think about in terms of my past marathon anxiety issues. In the past, I would go out and try to run a marathon without the proper tools. It was the equivalent of going outside in 20-degree weather in just shorts and a t-shirt. As a result, I was anxious and my body would react to the extent that I couldn't even finish the race.

Now, I have many tools in my arsenal to manage potential race anxiety. I have a hat and a warm pair of gloves and some fleece-lined pants. Also known as a process-focused mindset, a realistic understanding of the wide range of outcomes that could occur, and separation of myself as a person from my running. I understand which elements elements of the race I will control and which ones I won't, and I have ways of feeling in control at times when I might have otherwise felt out of control. Simply knowing that I have these tools and I've used them successfully in past races makes me feel confident and more relaxed going into the marathon. While there are no guarantees that I won't blow-up, I have no reason to believe that it would happen again, given that I am starting the race in an entirely different spot.

Tool Recommendations
Moving toward the more literal definition of tool, I have discovered some great running gear to help me feel comfortable in temperatures in the teen's. I typically don't review running products in my blog, but I make exceptions for items that are extremely helpful.

Brooks Wanganui Cabrio Mittens

• Smart Wool socks. The ones I use are almost as thin as my summer socks but keep my feet from going numb. This is no easy task as I have a pretty bad case of Reynaud's syndrome in my feet. The key, though, is to start running as soon as I get outside so my feet don't  have a chance to get cold beforehand. 
• Mizuno Breath Thermo base layers. I have a pair of Mizuno Breath Thermo gloves and a Breath Thermo half-zip shirt.On their own, they are okay, but they really work their magic as a base layer. Why? Because when you sweat, the material supposedly gets warmer so instead of the sweat making you cold, it makes you warm. This is an important property for the layer that's closest to your skin.
• Brooks Wanganui Cabrio Mittens. The Mizuno gloves don't do much on their own, but when warn with Brooks Cabrio Mittens and a set of Little Hotties hand warmers, they are awesome. Here's how it works: the Mizuno gloves are the base layer, then I put on the Brooks mittens, which are convertible into gloves. I insert one pair of the hand warmers into each glove (two pairs total) so that both the outside and the inside of my fingers are warmed. This solution kept my hands from going numb on a 9-mile run in 12 degree weather.
• Brooks Utopia Thermal Pants. My sister got me these for Christmas and they are a must-have. Last winter, I had to put tights underneath other running pants so that my butt and legs wouldn't freeze.  And that solution was uncomfortable and still very cold. These new Brooks pants are fantastic! I reserve them for temperatures under 25 degrees and they keep my legs and butt warm while still being a lightweight material. They are expensive, but I don't think I could run in such cold temperatures without a pair of pants of this caliber.

You don't get a medal for training in the cold.

While I do believe that training "in the elements" is valuable, it's okay to draw a line somewhere and opt for a treadmill. You can get just as good of a workout on a treadmill as you can outside, but there are some caveats. The primary one is injury. While a treadmill is arguably a softer and more forgiving surface than the road, most people change their gait on a treadmill. If you do nearly all of your running outdoors and then switch to a treadmill, your gait will alter and there is the potential for injury. That's how I ended up with three stress fractures a few winters ago. I also did treadmill intervals on a business trip back in October and my legs were sore for two days after. I had to pool run when I got home because they were so sore. That would not have happened on a track.

Putting the injury potential aside, I think that treadmill running can be useful when the roads are icy and unsafe. Or if you just don't feel like bundling up and going out in the cold. There is really no shame in running on a treadmill-- and there is really nothing commendable about running in very cold weather. You do what you need to do to get the training in.

Personally, I will opt for the 'mill if the road is icy and I'm worried about slipping. I'll also do the treadmill if there's a thunderstorm or more than 25 mph sustained winds. And occasionally on business trips if there is nowhere safe to run. However, I will not run more than 8 miles on a treadmill at a time. And I won't run on it more than 2-3 days a week. And as I learned in October, I won't do treadmill intervals anymore. Pool running would be preferable.

Scheduling Flexibility Is Important

I like having a training plan and I have one now. I went without training plans for about a year because I wanted to take things one week at a time, but now I am focused on the big picture and it's important to know what my overall training cycle will look like. The key thing to remember with a plan is that it should be flexible based on how your body feels and on life circumstances. Winter weather is a life circumstance that warrants some scheduling flexibility.

This week, I had planned to run my tempo run on Thursday. Wednesday was a scheduled rest day. I woke up on Wednesday morning and my legs did not feel like they needed to rest. I looked at the forecast and noticed it was supposed to snow that evening, meaning the roads would potentially be unsafe for Thursday's tempo. The current weather was 12 degrees with very minimal wind. No snow or ice on the ground. Pretty nice weather for a tempo, and if I had waited until Thursday I wouldn't have been able to do it at all. 

I adjusted on the spot. Got dressed in my trusty Brooks Utopia pants and layered on the gloves/mittens and did my tempo a day early. The run was fantastic-- my fastest 5-mile tempo ever while keeping my heart rate in the low LT zone. Including warmup and cooldown it was 9 miles total and it felt good! Actually it was much more comfortable than running a tempo in 70-degree weather. I just don't run very well in the heat/humidity so I will take 12 degrees over 70 on a speed work day or a race day.

I had my rest day on Thursday when there was snow on the ground and I did a short treadmill run this morning as there was still snow and ice. I'm not sure how I will manage my long run tomorrow with this ice and snow on the ground, but I'll try to find a mile or two of non-slippery pavement to run back and forth on. My teammates are running the Rock Creek loop (which may or may not be icy), but I need to stay close to home because of other plans I've made.

I think I've belabored this topic long enough! I'm looking forward to some warming next week so that the ice and snow will melt and running outside will be safe.

Brrrr. Cold Weather Running Tips (And Update!)

I know we've been spoiled in the Washington DC metro area with seasonably warmer than usual temperatures for most days and very little snow. While some folks love the fluffy white stuff, I hate it. I run in the dark before work, so I am not able to spot icy patches and I am not able to see the ground I am running on. Yeah, I know, I could get a head lamp. But I don't.

Thankfully, the weather hasn't yet caused me to take it to the treadmill, but I fully intend on using a combination of pool running/treadmill/elliptical if I think it's too icy to run outside. I think that too much treadmill running was the culprit behind my stress fractures last winter, so I wouldn't attempt to replace all my mileage with treadmill mileage.

As for the cold, there has only been one morning that was brutal, with a temperature of around 13 degrees. Otherwise, the temperatures have been in the mid 20's at their worst, with the wind chill often knocking them down into the teens.

Brooks Wanganui Cabrio Mittens

The biggest challenge in cold runs is my hands. Last January, I posted about the Little Hotties hand warmers I put in my gloves. However, they don't work well in traditional gloves. And the lack of air when put in mittens actually makes my hands hot and sweaty. So how do you best use these little nuggets of warmth?

The hotties need to be on your fingers, so my friend Cristina turned me on to the hybrid glove/mitten, which allows you to put the hotties in the mitten part, while still having access to your fingers if need be. I bought a pair of Brooks Wanganui Cabrio Mittens which are made of a heavier/fleecier material than other hybrids. They have been working great, but the only drawback is they come in either small/medium or medium/large, unisex. The small/medium size is too big for me, but I make it work anyway buy stuffing my sleeves into the base of the glove.

Another benefit of these gloves is that unlike regular mittens, you have quick access to your fingers for taking gels.

When it's really cold out, I end up using two pairs of hotties (4 total) one for the fronts of my fingers and the other for the backs. The lone thumb ends up getting cold, so I have to periodically insert it into the mitten area so it can share in the warmth.

As you may be able to deduct from reading this post, I have, in fact, been running again. I'm finally over my cold and my calf has been behaving. Here's a recap of my workouts since I last posted.

Sunday, Jan. 8: 13-mile run on the C&O Canal Towpath with my husband and my CAR teammates. Slow start, fast finish, average 8:48.

Monday, January 9: 4 miles of pool running + 500m swim. A fairly short swim for me, but I was feeling really worn down due to the lingering cold. I was really dragging the rest of the day

Tuesday, January 10: 6 miles, easy

Wednesday, January 11: 8 miles total, including 2 x 2 miles at tempo pace, followed by 1 mile at tempo pace. 5:00 recoveries. The first set of 2 was (7:30, 7:10) and the next set was (7:17, 7:06) and the final mile was (6:56). That first mile was the hardest. I think it's just really hard to get going in the cold. Even though the second set was faster than the first, it felt easier because I was warmed up. I did do a warmup before I started, but 1.5 miles at an easy pace just doesn't cut it when it's sub-freezing.

Thursday, January 12: Rest! (except for core work)

Friday, January 13: 6.5 miles total, including 5 x 800m on the track, with 400m recoveries. I was pleased with my paces. If I were going to do any more than five of them, I would have slowed my pace a bit.

Saturday, January 14: Another rest day!

Sunday, January 15: 16-mile run with my husband (well, he actually did 18 and we parted ways at mile 12). Cold and windy with a "real feel" of 16 degrees. Slow start, fast finish. Average 8:49. This run felt great at the end and I felt as if I could have gone farther/faster, but I didn't want to push it.

These workouts were out of sync with what the rest of my team is doing. They are doing hills instead of intervals, but considering this is my first week being "back" and probably the last week they are doing hills, I didn't think doing just one hill workout over the course of a training cycle would help me, so I got a head start on the intervals. We typically do intervals on Tuesday and Tempo on a Friday, but I reversed them because I wanted to prioritize the tempo run over the intervals. I didn't want the intervals to wear me out to the extent that I couldn't execute a good tempo.

So the week wasn't in line with the schedule I'm trying to be on (that of my teammates) but it worked for me.

I'm definitely more optimistic today than I was when I last posted. However, I know that there will be more obstacles to come in my training. I have a vacation coming up, followed by two business trips in February. I'm planning to do just two 20-milers instead of my usual three, but I keep reminding myself that my best marathon ever was run with just one 20-miler under my belt.

Hold the Hotties!

The title of this post was inspired by a Facebook post I wrote about my glove situation. My friend Dash commented that I should coin the phrase "hold the hotties" that I used to describe running with hand warmers.

I suffer from Reynaud's syndrome, which is basically a condition where your hands and feet get cold very easily, go numb and sometimes hurt. It affects mainly women, and it's not uncommon. I have it more severely in my feet than in my hands, but it doesn't affect my feet if I start running the minute I leave my front door. (It affects me in non-running situations, like cold office buildings or even just sitting around at home). At races, however, I don't have the luxury of being in a warm spot while waiting for the race to start so I tend to run the first few miles with numb toes and/or a numb heel and it's not easy. If I'm going to be waiting outside for awhile, like in the NYC Marathon, I will wear shoe inserts that keep my feet warm until it's time to start the race-- you aren't supposed to run with them. However, at NYC, the foot warmers lost their effectiveness about hour before race start, so I still ended up with numb feet.

My number one challenge to running in cold weather is keeping my hands warm. Last weekend I did a 20-miler on the treadmill because the winds were 15-20 MPH with a real feel in the single digits to low teen's. I might have been able to tough it out had it not been for the Reynaud's syndrome in my hands.

When I first started running in cold weather back in the winter of 2006/2007, I bought a pair of Hind 3-Season gloves. They were advertised as being heavy and good for really cold weather. They worked okay, but my hands would still end up numb and often painful. Sometimes they would hurt so much I would think I was on the verge of frostbite. Then I bought a thinner pair of gloves and wore those underneath the heavy gloves. That made a difference, but my hands were still completely numb by the end of long runs. Even in weather that was in the upper 30's.

In the winter of 2007/2008, I discovered "Little Hotties" hand warmers. They were my savior: "Little Hotties Hand Warmers are little bags of warmth! They contain an air-activated heat source that provides warmth and comfort in cold conditions." That's from their web site. It's amazing how warm these things get! My solution was to wear both pairs of gloves, putting the Hotties in between them on the backs of my hands. This worked well, but it didn't solve the problem of my fingers going numb.

For the next two winters I used the same system and it worked okay. I wouldn't do long runs in weather that was colder than 30 degrees. My fingers would still go numb after an hour or so, but it wouldn't be painful with that "I'm getting frostbite" sensation.

Fast forward to this winter. I had been accustomed to doing 100% of my runs outdoors because I moved to a new home that had safer places to run. I was spoiled with outdoor running and very reluctant to head back to the treadmill. But it would always be in the 20's (I run in the mornings before work), which would pose a problem for my hands. I discovered that if I didn't use the gloves as gloves, but rather as mittens, my hands would be warmer. By bunching my fingers together and holding the Hotties in the palms of my hands, my fingers would be nice and toasty. But then the backs of my hands would get cold, so I would have to rotate the position of the Hotties, which wasn't easy to do while running. So my morning runs were basically a back-and-forth rotation of where the Hotties would be (about once every ten minutes), and yet I would still come home with painful hands that were immobile. I had even tried the Mizuno Breath Thermo gloves (the thinner ones) as a base glove because they are made out of a special material that turns moisture, like sweat and rain, into heat. They are great for rainy runs, but they still didn't do the trick, even when combined with the Hotties and a heavier par of gloves over them.

I finally looked into getting some running mittens, since that's how I was using my gloves anyway. My fingers were warmer when bunched up together and sharing heat. I did some research online and discovered the Asics Ecoline Fleece Mittens. They looked warm and came in S-M-L so I could get a pair small enough to prevent air from coming through at the wrists. I ordered them online, but they didn't arrive in time for my 20-miler last weekend so I was treadmill bound. But today I was very excited to try them for the first time.

The weather forecast for today's run (15-miler) was a "real feel" in the mid to upper 20's. My strategy was to wear the mittens with two Hotties in each mitten: one for the back of my hand and one to hold onto to keep my fingers warm. This would prevent the constant rotation that I was having to do on my other runs. Two miles into the run, my hands start to get hot and sweaty. It got more and more uncomfortable so I took one Hottie out of each glove and put them into my pocket. I ran two more miles and my hands were still uncomfortably hot and sweaty. The thing about these gloves is that they are very tight around the wrist and they let no air in. That's a good thing, but it also made it impossible for any of the heat from the Hotties to escape, and those things get really hot! So I took the other Hotties out of the mittens and ran the rest of my run with just the mittens. My hands were cold, but not to the extent of being numb and painful. My thumbs were the only digits that became numb by the end, and that could have been avoided if I bunched them up in my fist and didn't use the thumb area of the mitten. It's amazing how much heat can be preserved when the fingers can touch each other and no air is let into the mitten.

Going forward, my hand solution will be to start the run with just one set of Hotties, and then remove them if need be. My hands ended up being okay without the Hotties in today's temps, but in the upper teen ands low 20's, I might need those Hotties back!

The results of today's run: 15 miles at an average 9:04 pace. This week was a cutback week, so I netted a total of 43 miles. I'll be back into the mid 50's next week. Keep warm everyone!