Sometimes, the weather cooperates and you get that break in the clouds, or the perfect soft breeze to cool you off on a run...
Last night was not one of those times.
On the schedule was 9 hills. For the past couple of days, the weather has been unseasonably warm - warm enough to melt a lot of the snow we've had. I'd heard that it was going to get a bit colder in the evening, but the forecast was for -7 (C) or so; not too bad.
When driving home, and driving to the Running Room, the roads were dry, and the outside temp on my car was showing about -5 C. Still, not bad.
When I stepped out of the car in the parking lot, I noticed a couple of stray flakes. Still, not bad.
In the 5 minutes I was in the store, the wind started to kick up, and the snow was starting to really come down, to the point that running to the hill was shockingly difficult. Not because it's a hard run, but because stinging, wet, icy snow was driving into my face. I was wishing I had my ski goggles!
By the time we got to the hill, it was a full on blizzard, driving at us from the right side going up, and the left side going down. I had several thoughts of quitting, but by the time I'd run up and down three times, I was a little more acclimated (numb), and thought I might as well finish. If you're going to start to run in something like that, you might as well do the entire run so that the suffering is worth it!
By Hill #7, I noticed my face was stuck. Frozen in a weird, drooping, wind-blasted way. I took a photo, but iphoto is acting up, so you'll just have to imagine it.
The final icing on the cake was that by the time I got home, it had warmed up, and the snow and wind had completely stopped!! As crappy as all that was, it was a bit of an ego boost - I was able to stay at the head of the pack, and even more importantly, I toughed out that storm.
And the Garmin data:
