Brrrrrrr!!!

I ended the old year on a good note by running the last two days of it. To make it even better, we got to say goodbye to 2009 and hello to 2010 with a great group of dear friends.

Two highlights of the evening were, first, watching the kids all stand in front of the tv watching the ball drop and clapping, just as if they were in Times Square. Once the New Year arrived, they were running around with their noise makers and sparkling grape juice while the adults toasted the new year with champagne.

The second highlight was each of the men at the party were wearing scarves. Yes, scarves. One of our friends works for the World Bank and spent the better part of November and December in Kiev in the Ukraine. He brought back scarves for the guys from the national Ukrainian soccer team. They all had their picture taken together with their scarves, inspiring some ideas for calendars...yeah, I'll leave that one alone here.

All in all, it was a good ending.

The start, well, let's just say it got very cold here with highs in the teens. We didn't do much of anything yesterday and I felt like I did nothing but eat junk. That feeling has continued today with the exception of me actually getting up the courage to go for a run in the frigid temps. It is really tough for me to go out and run in the cold when I am already cold and dressed in layers while in our house (I think it is about 65 degrees - and the back, where we are doing our renovations is a balmy 35 right now. Thank goodness for properly placed, new water shutoff valves and copper piping - as opposed to the previously burst pvc, but I digress).

The temperature was 17 degrees but I think it "felt like" 7 degrees. I wore one wicking shirt and one tech shirt under my jacket and my running tights under my pants but only wore one pair of socks, my awesome Smart Wools (seriously, can't say enough good things about them). I had a had, new gloves, and a scarf wrapped around my neck and covering my mouth until my lungs got used to the cold. Honestly, I think these are the coldest temperatures I have ever run in.

The first mile was rough. The scarf came off my mouth because I felt like I was sucking in fleece each time I inhaled. My toes went numb very quickly but then started to burn, an indication to me that the circulation was returning. By about mile two, I had to take the mitten part off the top of my fingers because my hands were sweating and getting my gloves all wet and I took off the scarf and tied it around my waist at 2.5 miles. I'm sure I looked a bit goofy, but hey, I was out there getting some exercise.

I went a little over 4 miles. I didn't bring the Garmin so I don't know the exact distance or what my pace was. Now that I know I won't return to the house freezing, I'll keep running outside as much as possible. Training for the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon begins this week and I'm still not quite sure how I'm going to fit it in. I really don't want to get up at 5:30 am to get it in so I'm considering taking my running stuff to work and running right after before I head home. I think there is a decent four mile square I could run, with 3/4 of it on country roads. I'm still working through it, though. Ah, the joys :-)

Hope you all have a great New Year!!!