The guy from Scotland made me do it

I got into work today and one of my colleagues (who is a beginning runner himself, I am glad and proud to say) asked me if I’d run today. He knows I’m a die-hard, I guess. Or just insane, take your pic.  It was 21 degrees this morning around 5:30 a.m., and with 20-30 mph wind gusts, the wind chill temp was 7, according to my iPhone’s weather channel app. I laughed and told him, “yep, because a guy from Scotland made me do it.”  So, this is my shout-out to Mickdo100 (as he’s known on Twitter), or the writer of the Nowhere Fast Revisited blog I have on my blogroll.  Funny how people you’ve never met in person can inspire you. Well, I guess that means almost all of you reading this blog, in my case!

I was sitting on my couch this morning, watching my dog Ruthie, who’s oh-so-cute, sleep all curled up on her chair, with her blue blankie wrapped around her (she will put up with anything from us as long as it means she’s getting attention, including being treated like a human baby), and listening to the wind howl. And I mean howl. We have chimes hanging on our one deck and you could tell from the lovely sounds that they made, that the wind was pretty strong. And when I took Ruthie out to relieve herself at 4:30 a.m. (imagine that being your rude awakening to the day), she could stand on top of the snow without breaking through. It was that cold.

So, the idea of getting out there and running (especially since I was afraid that somehow there’d be more black ice like yesterday when I was an idiot and didn’t wear my Stabilicers, thus forcing me to abandon my run for a power walk with Ruthie) was not really an appealing one. I mean, on the one hand, I have this good volume of the Vampire Diaries saga I’m reading (this book series is so much better than Twilight and mind you, coming from me, that’s saying a lot), or I could write some of my own fiction (really liking it the more I do it), and on the other hand, I could freeze my butt off.  (Oh, my other hand [I know, this gives me something like 4 hands right now if you've been adding them all up] had the option of decorating our Christmas tree.)

So, what do I do? I start whining about it on Twitter. And the power of the Internet, Mickdo100 , being 5 or 6 hours ahead of me, time-wise, and who also had the day off, and is injured, well, he tells me to get out there, dress warm, and remember that even if it’s only for 20 minutes that I get out there, it’s still better than nothing.

So, I thought about it. For a few minutes, and thought, “well, now or never, I’ve got to be on time today, I’m covering the reference desk first thing.” So I started getting dressed. Not a quick proposition with our weather. Three shirts, a pair of tights, one long pair of pants, a neck muffler, heavy thermal hat and warm gloves, smart wool socks, sneaks with Stabilicer Sports later, and I was ready to go! (Oh yeah, and my Road ID, or Road Kill ID, as I call it with iPod were worn also but those go without saying.)  For any of you who are wondering (and still reading), I do wear a headlamp in the dark. I want to live.

Running with all that gear can make it hard to move.  It was not my fastest run, but I didn’t wear my Garmin either.  I didn’t want to have to stand outside and wait for the thing to pick up satellites, it was that cold.  So, just two laps around my nearby lake, which means about 3.4 miles, and that was it for me.  But I got out there, and I did it, and I’m glad for that. Because sooner or later this season, those temps are going to feel downright balmy to me. (Oh, and I did stop about halfway to remove the Stabilicers, they just weren’t needed today. Luckily they are pretty lightweight so I put them in my pockets and started up again.)

While I was out there, I looked up at the sky, as I do many times on my runs when I can’t wait for the sunrise. The moon was very thin this morning, and of course the sky was completely cloudless (helping to keep the temps down.) This reminded me of another of my Twitter friends, TurtlePower1 (if you are on Twitter, I highly recommend following him. He has some great sayings, and perspectives.  He protects his tweets but just send him a request to follow and if you’re lucky, he’ll agree to it.)  He’s a runner that keeps his eyes on the heavens, watches for meteor showers, and has taught me a lot about the International Space Station and how you can see it in the night sky.  I think he would have enjoyed the pre-dawn sky I saw this morning.

Anyway, have you ever noticed that the moon sometimes seems to move further upward in the sky as the sun tries to take over?  I thought of it as an epic battle that gets fought every day between the sun and the moon for control over the sky.  We all know how it’s going to end, yet it gets repeated day after day. It’s one of my favorite reasons for being a morning runner.

I leave you now with a picture I took of the Cape the last time I was down there. Don’t worry, there’ll be no shortage of my opportunities to take more snow pics and post them up here for you! LOL

Grey's Beach, Cape Cod

Ok, gotta go and decorate my tree now – thanks for listening!

By the way, anyone think this post wins the award for use of most parentheticals or run-on sentences?! 

Snow running and loving it

We got our second snowstorm of the year – but personally I didn’t really count the first one. And even this one, while it created tons of havoc, didn’t leave a ton of snow behind like others have, but that’s just because the snow was followed by a ton of rain, and if you can believe it, thunderstorms and fog this evening?!

Anyway, Bill looked at me like I’d gone insane this morning when he got up around 5:30 a.m., saw it was snowing, and then saw that I was getting dressed to head out. He was like “you’re really going out in this?!”  And I said “yeah, just around the lake.” I meant for two laps around the lake, but he thought just one.  Just 3.8 miles down for the day, but I couldn’t wait to get out there!  (For non-runners reading this blog, they’re thinking “that’s sick, and why would anyone want to do that?” The runners reading this blog know exactly what I was thinking.)

It was definitely coming down quickly, and it was the wet, heavy snow. The kind that can come down at about 1-2 inches per hour, if not more. I actually had fun out there, and on the first lap out there, I even found myself smiling. Yep, drivers must have thought, “who the hell is that insane person out here in the driving snow, smiling like a jackass?!”  There was something very invigorating about being the only one out there, having the snow fly into my face, knowing that if I could get myself out there in this type of weather, and actually enjoy it,  there’s pretty much nothing I can’t do.

I have to say this – I had NO FEAR OF FALLING. I was wearing my Stabilicers (Stabilicer Sport model) that I bought last winter, which are made for running. They slip on underneath your shoes, and then have an elastic strap that you put around your sneakers as well, definitely keeping them on tightly.  It probably helps that with a 7.5 shoe size, I am at the large end of the small size. (Still with me?)

Today was also my first day of this fall/winter running season where I went with three layers on top. For the first lap around the lake anyway. I felt too warm, way too quickly, so I stopped at my house, took the outer layer off, and kept on going.  After which, overheating was not a problem, but then I felt tired. Not sure why.  So  I may take a page from Lindsay over at the Chasing the Kenyans blog and try doing a warm base layer, tech shirt mid layer, and then my running jacket over the top, next time, and see if that keeps me warm enough.  I know, though, that will only work down to about 30 degrees, if it’s precipitating.   If it dips into the 20s, I need my fleece, and sometimes I’m fine with just two layers, as long as it’s not raining/snowing.

Anyway, if you do live in a colder climate, I highly suggest the Stabilicer Sport model.  The roads had not been plowed at all this morning when I was out there, and I felt like I had teeth on the bottom of my shoes.  I thought, this must be what mountain climbers must feel like – these things REALLY grip the road beneath them! I even felt fine when climbing my little overpass, and running down the other side. It was a very liberating feeling.  

The only thing that scared me was my husband’s words “don’t get hit by a plow” as I left the house. (And we thank you for your support, LOL!)   In fact, I wish I could have actually SEEN  more than one plow during my almost 2-hour drive to work today (18 miles in total in case you are wondering.)

Anyway, have to get to bed, mornings come way too early around here! But at least I get to go in late to work tomorrow so if I can get a run in in the morning, it’ll be in daylight – wahoo!!  (We’re down to a whopping 9 hours of daylight here on the East Coast.)

I  leave you all with a snowy picture I took this past Sunday – we only got about 2-3 inches that day.  The orangeish glow in the background is the sun trying to break through.  As you can see, it had its work cut out for it.

the beauty of the first snowfall of the season