Okay, I psyched myself to run this morning. Last night, I realized that with the forecast for this morning, my face had a good chance of actually falling off this morning. So, while we were in the Reston area, we stopped by Potomac River Running. Great store, by the way. Not only did they have the balaclava (or, face mask), but they had all the running belt accessories My Lovely Wife and I have been looking for. And we walked out with: one balaclava, one new running belt, two new running belt loop pockets (large, neoprene), and a bunch of sports beans. I made the mistake of talking about running in the cold weather with the workers there, and we were comparing stories about yesterday's run (very cold) and this morning's run (very colder), so, with witnesses now, I *had* to run.
Fast forward, 6:00am. It was 1 degree at Dulles Airport (compared to a balmy 4 degrees at the local elementary school) when I walked out the door, into my car, and to Oak Marr Rec Center. This was a formal parking area for the Fairfax County Cross County Trail. Once again, it was a great location for a run. The route I chose was mostly in park land, which meant single track trails, some gravel trails, a couple of creeks to cross, and very few paved surfaces. I started at Oak Marr Rec Center and ran all the way to Lawyer's Road, and back again (duh). I stopped at exactly 14.00 miles, with a pace of 10:26. Much slower than my last run, but I did stop a few times, once when I saw my manager walking his dog (hello Garry), once when there were three trails and no signs (of course, I took the wrong way), once to eat, and towards the end, several times to walk up steeper hills (hey, I was tired).
The run itself. Well, my feet got numb within the first mile, and stayed that way for quite some time. My hands were very cold (in cold weather I sometimes wear warm mittens, but my hands actually get too hot, so I usually wear those throw-away cotton gloves they hand out at races), and I couldn't get the face mask adjusted properly. I ended up pulling it down off my nose and mouth so that I could breathe properly, but it still covered by head, cheeks, ears and neck. At the turn around point, I pull up the face mask to eat a sandwich, when I noticed that I had icicles on my glasses as well as at the opening of my face mask. Wow. That's pretty cold. My water bottles, which usually do well when they are under my vest were also freezing up. One was unusable, and another was just open enough to get water out. When I got back to the car, I noticed that I had a frost beard where the face mask had gotten wet due to my breath and then frozen over. What a scary site, I'm sure. The good part was that it warmed up 10 degrees during my run, from 4 degrees to 14.
Not a bad week overall.
2 comments:
Saturday was COLD!
A group of us ran the trails and had the same experience with icicles!
The icicles were sorta neat, and it's good story now! I'm beginning to really like trail running, more things to look at, constantly keeping your mind engaged (almost tripped twice even those I was watching), and there's a certain thrill of running through the woods or along a stream.
Good luck on your runs!
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