C-C-C-C-Cold and Snow

I was trying to post my blog yesterday when I lost my connection and completely lost what I had typed. I will summarize quickly.

Sunday was a warm day here in Wisconsin. It was 45 F and we had some rain. Most of the snow melted leaving lots of bare spots and piles of dirty snow. There goes the White Christmas I thought we would have. But there is a saying here in Wisconsin: If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.

The weather definitely changed on Monday. I woke up to it being 2 F with lots of wind. Froze myself on my walk from the parking lot into work. Despite all this, I decided to go on my after work run. I ran the Hills Loop 5 miler and was it cold. I think it was 8 F with a wind chill factor of -8 or so. Some of you from the south might not know what a “Wind Chill Factor” is. Well, when it is cold and the wind is blowing, it feels that much colder. So when I ran at 8 F, it felt like -8 F because of the wind blowing on me. I warmed up after a mile or so but I was also out of the wind. I ended up averaging 8:40 pace so I was OK with that since it was so cold.

Today was not quite as cold but it started snowing at about 3PM. It was a balmy 11 F today on the run. Mike joined me and we did the Hills Loop 5 miler again. We do this one in the winter a lot because the bike trail is covered in snow and the main roads are busy. We go into a close neighborhood with little traffic to keep from getting hit. Again it started out very cold as the snow was blowing in our face. And again after a mile or so, we warmed up. Mike kept the pace going but we were slowed a lot because of the snow accumulating on the ground. Some of the hills were quite slow trying to get traction and not slipping. While it felt like we were going faster that I was yesterday, it actually took us about 1 minute longer. Snow can really slow you down I guess but then again, I have been running in it for many, many years now. I know we get many funny looks from people as we run past, but we look funny a lot as well. When we finished, we saw ourselves in a mirror. I have white eyebrows and hair from the snow and a pink face. I keep telling myself that this kind of running makes me stronger in races, and I think I will just keep telling myself that. It helps me keep my insanity.

I did see a funny headline on the Internet today. It said something like “The current cooling trend just illustrates increase speed of Global Warming” Now if anyone can explain that one to me, I would love to hear it!