It's getting cold in here, so take off all your clothes

If you caught my rant on Friday, you'll know that I am not happy about the severe winter weather that's come early to Boston this year. This was not in the contract! When I moved back from sub-tropical climates after 6 winters, it was under the assumption that global warming would prevent bullshit like this. But I digress. The point is, I complain a lot, but that's only because I'm getting out there anyway.

Knee deep in snow after shoveling

With another 6-8" of snow forecasted for Sunday (this on top of Friday's 8-12"), the only time I would have to do my long run was on Saturday morning. On Saturday morning it was about 17* outside. A previous Claire would have said, "Fuck that", gotten drunk on Friday night and slept it off on Saturday morning, because it's impossible to run in that shit. But the new Claire is tougher than that and doesn't care if running in 3 layers under a big cotton sweatshirt makes her look fat.

I tried my best to run on the sidewalks, I really did. Where there were sidewalks, anyway. They might be clear for half a block, and then there would be all these dozens of footprints in 2" deep muck that was frozen stiff that made it hard to keep your balance or push off, or move forward in any way. Then, at the end of each block, right after the curb there was about a meter of hard, brown, dirty snow, about 6 inches deep that the street plows left for the sidewalk plows, and the sidewalk plows left for the street plows. Six inches, boo hoo, right? Well that stuff was hard to pick through, and fair weather princesses like me don't like to get snow in their shoes. And that was where it was easy! Sometimes I would get to the end of the block to find that there was snow piled up 4 feet at the end of the carved-out sidewalk and I would have to turn around and run back a block to get out to the street. There were several sections where I would get trapped on a really badly-cleared sidewalk for 1/4 of a mile where there were no crossroads, and the waist-high snow between me and the road was too high for a lilliputian like me to climb over. There was nothing to do but keep picking through the uneven hard snow. I tried to give myself permission not to care about pace.

I paid attention in 1st grade, and I know it's not safe to run in the road, but with the sidewalks the way they were (when there were sidewalks at all) I had to run in the road more and more. But there's a lot less road now, since the snow covers the shoulder, and with everyone riding SUVs these days... I was forced to run through the spill-over from the snow banks at the side of the road so the street surfaces weren't much better than the sidewalk. I took comfort in the fact that if I had to dive head-first into a snowbank to avoid a car, it wouldn't hurt too much.

When I came down from a 6.5-mile loop through the hills I set out for another 5 miles around the lakes. Yikes! If I thought it was cold inland, you should have felt it around the lakes! I took my glove off to eat some Shot Blocks, pulled the ziplock out of my pocket, and the zip ripped off. Plop! The bag fell ripped-edge-down onto the road. Damn. Half my blocks had little flecks of road smooshed into their sticky, squishy surface. Then, when I tried to pull my glove back on, I couldn't get my hand in. In the few minutes it had been off, it had frozen into shape and I had to beat it up quite a bit to get it flexible enough to pull it back on my hand. I couldn't feel the skin on my face and the cold was biting through my 4 layers of clothing.

On the way back home I got to run in the middle of a back road for a glorious 2 blocks without stumbling through any hardened snow. It was wonderful. Despite the 13 miles in my legs, I felt fresh and new, like I could run another several miles without crashing. I almost felt springy! Despite the fact that every muscle in my body was aching from running on slippery, crumbling and uneven surfaces, I realized that I will rarely have to run on anything so difficult again. When we finally get to see the trails and sidewalks again (hopefully sooner rather than later), I'll be a machine. The treadmill would never get me in this kind of shape.Snow up to my knees. (Side note: I would just like to point out that I just looked out the window and saw a father walk by pulling his 3-year-old kid behind him in a sled. They were IN the street, sledding. No kidding.)

When I came in the door the tips of my hair that had been sticking out from under the hat were frozen. I coughed. Then I hiccuped. Coughhiccup. My mom asked me something and I couldn't answer. Every breath made me cough, which made me hiccup, which made me cough and hiccup again. I sounded pretty silly.

After workouts like this it makes me that mean kind of proud of myself. It makes me want to
gloat and call other people pussies. It makes me want to push Mother Nature's face into a snowbank and ask how she likes it. It makes me want to make a muscle in front of overweight people. It makes me feel good about myself.

Meanwhile, while I was gloating and wrapping presents for charity in a toasty mall in Cambridge, just over the river in Boston some fools were doing the Santa Speedo run. 1.25 miles through downtown Boston in December dressed like this:
Really! Just when you think you can be proud of yourself, just when you think you're the craziest kid on the block, something like this comes along to one-up you... Anyone down for next year's edition?