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Crazy in the Cold

This is how we do it!
I have been getting a lot of questions about running in the winter. The questions range from the typical 'how the heck do you stay warm' to the rhetorical 'are you freaking crazy?'


The answer to the crazy question is: YES, I am crazy, but I already knew before I became a runner. I was talking with a friend last week and she asked me if I was going to run that day (it was something like 9 degrees before wind chill) and I promptly responded with a Yup. She told me that, while she admires my dedication she simply thinks I am down right crazy. My response? I shrugged my shoulders, put on my shoes and ran!

And, how do I keep warm while running? Well, what I learned from my first supervisor while living in Maine is this: There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. As I look at my running log, which is where I track my mileage, pace, clothing, temperature, who I ran with, insights from the day (these range from random discoveries about life, to recognizing how cool the moon looked), I realize that most of the time I unzip my coat, take off my gloves/hat within the first mile. The truth is my body is an oven and it barely takes a quarter of a mile for me to warm up! 


Of course there are days in which I have no desire to run because of the weather, but I ran across this quote on another running blog: “A true  runner ran even when he didn’t feel like it, and raced when he was supposed to, without excuses and with nothing held back." I guess I can say I am a true runner.

With ALL that being said I did give in yesterday (due to a sheet of ice) and went to the gym to log my miles...

Maybe I am not that crazy after all!!!

Comments

  1. MandyJanuary 26, 2012 at 9:37 PM

    I'm the same way - my body is an oven! Your crazy is the good kind of crazy. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. SaraJanuary 28, 2012 at 9:53 PM

    I also get really hot when I run so running in the cold never really bothered me - I think I actually prefer it it!

    ReplyDelete

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