Speed of Diminishing Returns

Christmas Day.... since I don't formally celebrate Christmas, this comes down to a day off. Usually that includes a good dose of television, some cooking, cleaning up, and otherwise catching up. But unlike other days off, it doesn't include is a trip to the gym, because along with practically every other business , it is closed. So today became a day to overcome slothdom and beat my own path to fitness. I did something I rarely do. I ran. On the road. Up and down hills. It was hard. But it was good.

I discovered something that would have escaped me if I only ran on a track because a track has no hills. When running uphill, if you slow down too much, you come to a speed of diminishing returns. It becomes more difficult to run uphill that slowly. You start to feel like you are running through mud. Or moving backwards. It's easier to push up the hill, and hold back a little on the downhill, to ease the recovery. And then I just got to a point where I knew I was on the last hill and I just wanted to be done with it and there was n o reason to hold back. I make it sound like I was out there running major mileage. It was only about 3.75 miles. But at least half of it was uphill!

I used this as an opportunity to try Burton's Headphone Beanie, which is a hat with built in headphones. Made by Burton, the snowboard company, meant more for snowboarders than for runners. I bought it as a Christmas present for a friend, mostly because when I saw it I thought it was really neat and I wanted to buy it for someone (other than me). Then I realized that my friend doesn't run outdoors much especially in the winter nor does she does she spend significant time on cross country skiis. I ended up buying her something else (a tie-dyed hoodie sweatshirt that she absolutely fell in love with). So I decided to try the headphone beanie to see if I want to keep it, give to someone else as a belated Christmas gift, or return it. Here is a picture of someone (not me) wearing a black one. Mine is beige. The hat is kinda cute, not dorky, and I'm sure very representative of snowboarder fashion. It wasn't a really cold day (low 40s) but the hat kept my head and ears toasty warm. The cord connecting the headphones to the iPod has its own volume control-- very handy. It wasn't heavy or awkward. The sound was good, not great, but good enough to propel me over the hills. I reconsidered gifting it, but after I got it a bit sweaty, well that would be kinda gross. So I either have to run outdoors more or hope we get more snow and wear it skiing or snowshoeing. Or wear it on the treadmill, start a new trend in fitness fashion.