I thought that i’d missed the cold temperatures yesterday by taking a day off from running, and although I think I missed what they call the ‘harsh’ temperatures, it was still pretty darn cold out there today. Since I’m in week 3 of recovery from the Philly marathon, I only had 13 miles on the schedule today (my so-called long run).. and the temperature (depending on where you looked) was 22 degrees with a 14 degree wind chill at 6:30 this morning when I headed out .. it was so cold my Under Armour hat froze on the sides where I was sweating by the time I got back to the house.
I’m happy to say that I wasn’t the only mildly insane one out there today in the cold, I passed both the normal Saturday morning threesome that I saw all summer and another solo guy who looked pretty cold, but was pushing on anyway. The thing that bugged me with the temperatures today was that I was trying to gauge what the temperature was prior to going out so I knew how many layers to put on, and between the Weather Channel and the Accuweather Channel, there was a 10 degree difference, and the wind chill difference were even worse (one was 14 degrees WC, the other was 1 degree WC). I’ve never seen such a difference between the two channels before … I found that Accuweather was correct in the end, but I just don’t understand why… I guess maybe i’ll never get the answer, but showing what the current temperature is seems like a pretty simple concept, right? Its a fact that meteorologists can’t get a forecast right, but at least you would think they can get the current temperature right!?!
Anyway, the highlight from today was this guy I saw towards the end of my run who was not making a good move by wearing shorts and just a long sleeve shirt out there in the cold. He was cold, there is no doubt that he was cold… his legs were bright red and he was huffing and puffing and trying to hold his head up like he was making it, but you can see that he was suffering … Even I, at some point, accept the fact that the summer running season is over and you have to change gear for the winter, I think this guy was just holding on a little too long, hopefully he’ll be smart when I see him again.
On another note, i wrote the other day about my mp3 player dying in the rain, well, again, its come back to life. Yep, its still the same old gen2 ipod shuffle that’s been acting up since the summertime, I just haven’t replaced it yet. I keep meaning to replace to (after the fiasco with the gen3 ipod shuffle a few weeks), but I consider that its a game now to see how many times it stops working and then keeps coming back before it finally bites the dust for good… its really sad because it doesn’t even turn off anymore nor can i change the mode on it. Even the bottom plastic piece has fallen off of it, its really funny looking … but it got me through another run yet again.
Tomorrow may be another day in the slop (snow/rain/sleet) … they’re not calling for much snow, but any combination of snow, rain, etc is enough to make it a mess to run in. Oh well, this is the last non-training week before we step it up and start the formal training for the Ocean Drive marathon in March.. hopefully things will start to get better (although I seriously doubt it).
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