OWL-DRAGON

Cold Weather Running

I wimped out on my Friday trail run. The weather forecast was for a cold rain. I just didn’t fancy a seven or eight mile slug in the wet. So I slept in and of course no rain = the storm had move far enough off coast we weren’t affected. Grrrrrrr.

So Saturday I was determined to get a good run in Saturday. It was cold but not Frank’s cold (although Monday and Tuesday are forecast to be the coldest days in 11 years which means it will be the coldest weather I have run in). I layered up and felt quite comfortable. I modified my course and it worked well – my finish was just short of 10 according to my garmin. The day was quite beautiful with bright blue skies and that crystal winter clarity. We have not had a real snowfall yet but we have had a series of snow showers that leave a coating that disappears during the day. It makes for pretty morning runs.

On my Ipod I had loaded Vince Gill’s new four album set These Days (What a great set as Gill ranges over a variety of styles – he really is a perfect choice of president of the Board of Trustees of the Country Music Hall of Fame as he obviously loves both the old and new) On a whim I had also placed the last moment of Beethoven's Ninth. I had already used the shuffle a couple of times without hearing the Ninth but as I began my last mile there was Beethoven. What a great way to finish.

Today was a couple of degrees colder and a little cloudier but still quite beautiful. I usually go uptown one day and downtown the next but today I thought the prettier run would to be go north again. The course included the nature trail at Haverford College. Parts of the trail were a snow cover that had melted and refroze making for some tricky footing. In fact throughout the course I had to be careful of black ice since the bright afternoon sun would thaw the ground despite the cold and later in the shade and night the wet refroze.

For me these cold runs are much more fun than slogging out those 80F / 80% humidity days in August. Let’s see if that feeling survives Tuesday night.