Baby it’s Cold Outside…

I'm not sure if I've said before how much I hate the treadmill. I HATE it. I have done one treadmill workout since July and I have the remains of a nice blood blister on my center left toe. I won't include a picture of said toe, as always my toenails hate me and I have a few on their way out and a few on their way in as we speak.

That being said, it's been pretty dang cold around these parts.

I started running with my friend Patti in July. She was super intimidating at first, you've gotta love someone that is willing to get up at the crack of dawn and meet to run at 5:15 am three mornings a week. When we were running in July, and I might have mentioned this before, it was about 85 degrees at 5:15 in the morning with about 97% humidity. My how things have changed. Seriously, I need to live somewhere that there is actually a fall and a spring. This morning, I think my phone said it was 23 degrees out. I'm just going to say that 23 degrees with no wind is WWWWAAAYYY better than 30 degrees with north winds at 15-20 miles an hour. That was Monday, by the way.

I committed to six miles this morning even though the weatherman told me I was crazy. The hardest part of running in the cold is convincing yourself that you are not going to freeze to death. That would only happen if you stop moving. Did you know that if you are meeting someone to run at 5:15 you have to get up at around 4:45 in the morning? I am a morning person, and I have been for quite some time, but this is ALMOST too early for me.

I had all my stuff laid out. My one pair of long pants, my insulated shirt, a long sleeve technical shirt, ear warmers, my Bad Ass hat that my friend Kim bought me last year which doesn't actually cover my entire ears so I have the ear warmers too (I try really hard to not look like a dork in a knitted or crocheted hat but I have since been unsuccessful), my jacket, and my Gap gloves that I have had for about a million years (Patti said her hands feel cold just looking at me with these on).

I got up, got dressed and then I made a cup of green tea that I put in an insulated mug for post run warmth on my way home. I was surprised that it did stay pretty warm, I'd do it again.

All in all, the run wasn't bad because it was cold. It might have been the bootcamp class last night that has my booty all kinds of sore that was the problem, but I felt HORRIBLE. Sure we were running at about an 8:15 pace and we slowed up to about 8:45 or 9, but mentally it was a very hard morning.

Now I need to see about some real cold weather running gear and I'll be all set.

I still need to recap the Route 66 Half and the OKC Turkey Trot. Man have I been slacking lately…