Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

By Dennis Barker
We asked Team USA Minnesota coach Dennnis  Barker to share his thoughts on this winter of our discontent, to borrow from a sentence penned by an old English playwright.  To give us his thoughts on training through Minnesota's most well known season.  Insert joke here: Minnesota has two seasons, winter and road construction.

It’s been awhile since we've had this kind of cold in St. Paul.  The first half dozen years of Team USA Minnesota’s existence saw a string of the warmest winters in our recorded history.  There were a few Decembers during that string when we were still doing workouts on grass wearing just one thin layer of clothes.  Zero degrees had become a rarity.  Even the last few winters, though a little more typical, have been warmer than the averages. 

We’re now experiencing a January that may end up in the all-time top ten coldest - kind of a shock since just a few weeks ago, though it seems much longer, we experienced one of our warmest Novembers ever.  This has prompted runners who have never experienced this kind of cold to ask about the safety and sanity of running outside when it’s twenty degrees below zero.  

So, knowing I would receive eye rolls from the young people I coach, I pulled out my training journal from the winter of 1982.  This was before the advent of health clubs as we know them, and the easy access to treadmills and 200 meter indoor tracks that we now have.  It was also before the widespread application of “technical” clothing in sport, when man-made fabrics were mostly confined to polyester leisure suits and shirts with big collars worn over the collar of your sports jacket.  And yes, I had a mustache.  Anywho, in January of 1982, which was similar to this January, I ran 425 miles, mostly outside, kicking off a year in which I set many of my PRs.

But I wasn’t any more “hardcore” than many other Minnesota runners, and I was much less elite than runners like Dick Beardsley, Garry Bjorklund, Janice Klecker, Mike Slack, Jan Ettle and Alex Ratelle, who were doing the same or more than I was.  I remember being at running parties that winter on incredibly cold nights and hearing many discussions of people making plans to do a long run the next day without any thought or talk of what the temperature might be.  It was just an accepted part of being a runner. 

Bjoklund  never wore gloves during winter runs.  "Don't need them," he would say.  His only accommodation to really frigid temps, he would pull his sleeves down to cover his hands.

The quality of running in Minnesota at that time was very good.  Many 10K races were won in under thirty minutes, with some races having three or four men under thirty.  The women were winning 10K races in the thirty-fours, with the occasional sub-34.  There were several sub-2:20 men and sub-2:40 women marathoners.  And people raced a lot, so there were never any easy ones.  

Someone good always showed up.  All of these runners ran a lot of miles outside during that frigid January.  How frigid?  During on stretch of Sundays (the day we all did our long run) the warmest temperature was -6 degrees.  The others were -26, -21, -23, -20 and -11.  Plus, there were a few of those kind of days in-between the weekends.  I don’t remember anyone ever begging off a long run.

"This week in 1982, when the polar vortex was just called a cold day, my long run was 22 miles in 2:19 with -23 temp."--Dennis Barker

This is not to minimize the advances in running gear, equipment and facilities that have definitely enhanced winter training in Minnesota.  It’s just to say that training in very cold temperatures has been, and can be, done safely and effectively.  The most important factor in not only maintaining fitness, but advancing it toward your goals during a brutal cold spell is that, due to the more difficult conditions and having to wear three layers of clothes, your heart rate is higher than it would normally be, even running at a moderate pace.  So you’re getting a higher quality aerobic training effect without as much stress on your legs.  Consequently, your legs can probably handle more mileage, and a larger portion of that mileage is in a higher quality aerobic zone.   

A track meet in "the Barn," the U of MN fieldhouse, in the mid '70s.  Dirt track.
Webbing hanging from the ceiling as the facility was built primarily for indoor
workouts for the baseball team.
Photo by Jim Ferstle

I did five indoor track workouts and two indoor races during that January, which was plenty to stimulate my fast-twitch muscle fibers enough to make the pace of my outdoor runs a little quicker, and have it feel a little easier.  A lot of my buddies did the same.  I ran the Northwest Open three mile on the old indoor dirt track at the University of Minnesota in 14:13 and finished fourth.  The top two guys went under fourteen, and there were a bunch of more guys right behind me.  

"This week a long time ago I ran the NW Open 3 mile on the old indoor dirt track in 14:13. A water truck was brought in to keep down the dust."--Dennis Barker

The most important thing in running in this kind of cold is to keep the wind out and keep your body heat in.  Wear a thin layer of wind break material on the outside over a couple of other layers, not only on your top but also over your legs.  Run into the wind first so the last part of your run is with the wind.  

Start right up at a brisk pace to get your body temperature up.  Once you turn back for home with the wind, any parts of you that had gotten cold, will warm up quickly.  Wear some good mittens.  Gloves won’t cut it, your fingers stay warmer when they’re together.  Wear socks that come up over your ankles or higher, and a gator or something similar to protect your neck and keep body heat from escaping.  If you dress well enough to stay out for awhile, running in very cold weather provides both a physical and mental training effect that will last throughout the year.