Hows my little Runner?

Tonight I ran outside for 2.79 miles in below freezing conditions. This is crazy for many reasons.

Reason number one. I have signed up to run a marathon.
I've paid my moneys and I can't get a refund, I'm hooked. The marathon I will be running in is Grandma's Marathon up der in Duluth Minnesota. Awhile back I was chatting with my pal Aaron over dollar beers and we somehow came to the conclusion that we should run this marathon. His moving to Duluth made it our destiny. I'm still not sure how I'm going to do this since I've never ran anything farther than 6 miles at one time ever.

Another reason this is a silly Idea? The marathon is in the middle of June, meaning most of my training is going to be done in the winter. This leads me to my first statement, tonight I ran outside and the temperature was 15 degrees.

This summer I did some jogging to keep myself trim for the honeymoon/wedding and got pretty decent at surviving the heat. Although I never liked it I could handle it. Coming back from a run and sitting down and creating my own puddle of sweat is not something I enjoy. So now that it's winter I'm far from prepared to running in this kind of weather.

My first dilemma was what to wear, In the summer I wear shorts socks and shoes. Tonight I wore tights on bottom and top, another shirt, gloves, and an old jacket.My biggest hangup with cold weather training is what to wear on my legs. I recently acquired some sexy running tights and my dilemma was, tights and shorts or just tights. So of course I did some research on the interwebs and found some mixed reviews on how to wear said running tights. The comments I read seemed to be mixed, folks would proudly boast I run in tights only! or I wear shorts as well because I don't want people looking at my goods. After reading several people's logic I decided tights only since my running shorts on top wouldn't be worth a damn for heat retention.

This was surprisingly awesome. First, I felt super sexy, next, in fifteen degree weather I managed to stay warm. Aside from my first 10 steps, my legs were comfy. This was until I ran into the wind. This sucked, aside from my cold face, I had another sensitive portion of my body do it's best at screaming and hiding. Sadly it failed and just hurt so bad I had to turn around head back into town where I could use houses and trees as wind-blocks. I love the cold, but apparently not all of me does.

And the best part about my run? Within the first five minutes of my run a car pulled up next to me and asked if I needed a ride. I wish I was more on the spot but I just yelled, No thanks! I'm just out for a run! I bet she pulled away thinking I am the craziest person in the county.


I learned a couple of important things about running in the cold tonight.

Number one:
Find out a way to keep all of my bits warm.
Number two:
Get a jacket that will be visible at night.
Number three:
Wear a headlamp, running in the dark is ok, running on ice in the dark is not.



In other related running news, Laura and I have signed up to run a Warrior Dash in Georgia. It will be a Jacobson vs. Davis Challenge. Neither team cares who wins but we are all excited to dress in absurd outfits and run/jump/crawl our way to the finish. I'm excited to drink a beer or two and watch other absurd looking southerners cross the finish. If you haven't heard of the Warrior Dash, check it out.

I'm also running in the Champaign Marathon, I'm doing the iChallenge which is a 5k on Friday and a half marathon on Saturday. I'm running the half marathon as an excuse to make sure I'm training properly for a full Marathon. Good times!