There is no such thing as too cold.
There is no such thing as too early.
There is no such thing as too far.
I am a runner.
My lunch times are not for eating.
My Saturday's are not for sleeping.
My holiday's are not for taking it easy.
I am a runner.
It's 5:30 am. Do you know where your running shoes are?
If I have to prove to anyone that I am RUNNER and not a JOGGER, I think I did it today. I woke up at 5:30 am and was out the door at 6:00 with my running shoes strapped to my feet. The temperature was 11 degrees, wind chill 4 below. And today is Saturday.
Not only was this my coldest run yet, but also my longest. I've been increasing my mileage slightly over the last few weeks, and I'm feeling good about it. Today was 3.7 miles. I will have to wait and see what my body feels like tomorrow, but it is my plan to stay in the 3 to 3.5 mile range for regular runs, and add in a 4 mile once per week.
I found myself dressed appropriately, for the most part. I wore my polyester running cap and ear warmer, with a long sleeve shirt and short sleeve shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, running gloves, shorts, and two pair of polyester workout pants. I also opted for a heavy pair of cotton work socks rather than the normal no-show socks. I probably looked a bit geeky, but I was warm.
Except for my hands. They were fine for the first 2.5 miles or so, but then my fingers got cold. Really cold. I mean REALLY cold. I kept making sure that I could at least feel things with them, because the term "frostbite" kept running through my mind. But then a strange thing happened at about mile 3.4: my hands warmed up and became comfortable again. I'm not sure what was up with that.
The hooded sweatshirt was mostly ideal, because I could drop the hood and raise it back up again as I needed to. However, I would like a quick way to tie it because when running into the wind, I would like to block the wind from coming in.
I also noticed that my heart rate was quite high most of the way, above 175. I think this is because I am fighting a cold. This cold is the reason that I opted not to run on Thursday or Friday. But today, I was experiencing "running withdrawal", so I decided to go anyway. I did have to walk twice when my heart rate topped 180. But even in the mid 170's, I still felt relatively comfortable as far as my breathing goes. After the run, while I was taking a shower, I began to have doubts as to whether it was a good idea to go out today; I started to feel light headed and nauseous. So I spent an extra few minutes in the shower and turned up the water temp a little bit. As of this writing I feel OK, although not the best. Time will tell.
The only other thing to note is that my right quadricep was feeling a bit tight towards the end of the run and for an hour or so afterwords. This is probably lactic acid that needs to clear. I did pick up the pace a bit towards the end of my run. As usual, I took a protein shake right away after the run. We also had scrambled eggs with ricotta cheese and ham for breakfast.
3.7 miles in 40:18. Average 10:53 per mile. Clothing: see above.
The next paragraph might fall into the TMI category for some, so you have been warned. Stop reading now if you do not want to read about my underwear. My Jockey sport briefs came today; 100% polyester. They worked quite well. All of my clothes were wet and stinky when I was done, but I felt dry all over, even in the areas of a man's body that don't vent well. This is the job of polyester. I think I might have found a winner.
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