brrr..

16˚ fahrenheit. wind chill 0˚. 6 am.

dramatic enough? i don't think any intro could be dramatic enough for this morning's run. we knew going into it that we were going to have a damn cold run, but i had no clue it would be so windy.

as we exited our apartment building, aj went right and i went left in typical fashion. after about a minute i knew we'd meet on the other side of the block as long as neither of us turned into ice cubes or got blown away. right before passing, the thought of quitting had already ran through my head. why not just cross-train today.. you know, inside? no, we couldn't. i wasn't going to let a little wind or antarctic conditions scare me away. no, i was going to run damn it.

it was a good thing i thought to grab some paper towels to throw into my hoodie pocket before hitting the sidewalk. i don't typically spend more than a nanosecond in the cold, but once in the 7th grade i went ice skating with my middle school and my nose dripped like a leaky faucet. i knew this run would be much more painful than that school trip and i wanted to be prepared. not too far into my trek i had to whip it out. the mucus in my face must dislike the cold as much as i do because it wanted out of the wind and into my pocket. i had to actually stop running a few times to blow because there was just so much of it. it was quite a sight. especially after it started freezing in my pocket. what colorful imagery, i know.

(if you look down to where my run is posted from my nike+ you can actually see the drops in the graph where i had to stop to blow my nose. so sad.)

i found a row of garages that sort of blocked the wind. i decided to do laps around them. once i could feel some blood pumping through my cheeks i decided i was warm enough to man up and leave the security of my garages and face the open road. bad call. with the wind hitting me full force my ass actually went numb. no joke. with every impact of my feet hitting the frozen ground i think icicles fell from my butt. to make sure my ass hadn't detached itself and returned to the comforts of my bed while i was running, i reached back and grabbed it with both hands. thankfully my hands felt my ass, but my ass didn't feel my hands. oh well, only about 10 minutes to go..

as the man in my ipod told me that my run was almost done, i made my way back towards our apartment. i saw aj running and was happy he hadn't turned to an ice block like i almost had. we walked shortly after our time was up to help our muscles cool down and stretch a bit, but standing in the wind pushed us to go next door and into the sauna.

we quickly warmed up in the relaxing dry heat of our wooden oasis and sipped on cold water as we shared our frigid stories. we stretched our muscles and kicked back until some loser came and turned the lights out on us! aj made a typical "aj noise" and the man realized that he wasn't the only person cool enough to be in the gym at 6:30 in the morning. he turned the lights back on. we gave each other a stare as the d-bag was joined by a buddy. they began running on the two treadmills that are in the gym and began talking about which of their muscles were sore. it sounded like they had just started a training program much like ours. we laughed and had another sip of water as we thought about how much more hardcore we were for running outside in the elements.. basically winning at running.

aj and leslie - 1

d-bag and pal - 0