Running in a Winter Wonderland

It has been a cold, snowy few days here in Calgary!  On Friday I met up with Kelly to run some hill repeats together.  It was –12C, but –22C with the wind chill.  I bundled up well with multiple layers including two caps and a down pullover.It definitely felt cold out, but I was also dressed well.  I knew that once we started running up and down the hill I’d warm up quickly.

We ran to the base of the Curling Club hill for our warm up, then I had 6 x 3:00 minute hill repeats on tap.  The Curling Club hill is definitely a little steeper than the one I’ve been running near home recently.  It was good to mix it up!  Even though it wasn’t really snowing I had to take a quick break when then snow plough went down the hill.Otherwise the hill was nice and quiet and Kelly and I gave ourselves a pat on the back for getting outside on a cold day!  When I went back to the work in the afternoon I pulled on my new Zensah argyle compression socks to help my recovery.  I got some compliments on these from some of the ladies at the gym.I wasn’t able to run on Saturday so I had an unintentional day of rest between my hills and my 3 hour long run.  Would I be able to notice?  When I woke up it was –12C so I spent a good amount of the morning cleaning the kitchen.  I checked the weather and the temperature wasn’t budging.  Time to get a move on.  I bundled up and drove to Edworthy.  My car read –10C.  It would be a chilly run!I decided to start the run off slower than I have been lately to see if that would help me in the long run.  I was also given permission by my coach to shorten my run/walk intervals up so I ran 5:1 intervals.  I carried some tropical nuun in my bottle since I wanted to get back to taking some electrolytes in on my long runs.  I’ve never tried this flavour before but I really liked it.  It isn’t too sweet or strong and I love the effervescence.  I also have some additional new to me flavours to try soon – grape, fruit punch and strawberry lemonade (the one I am looking forward to trying the most).I also was bringing along a new flavour of GU to try in addition to my usual Cherry Lime and Chocolate Raspberry Roctanes.  Peppermint stick!  This stuff is so good!  It is definitely my new favourite flavour of GU.  It is cool and refreshing and tastes just like the filling of an After Eight mint.Time to run!Since I had to run for three hours I figured I would run from Edworthy to the YMCA at Eau Claire market which would take me about an hour.  I’d then turn back and return to Edworthy, then do another short out and back to make it to three hours.  This way I’d be running the busiest and clearest parts of the pathways.  While it just looked incredibly foggy to start the run I realized that stuff was soon falling.  There was a lot of stuff falling!Seriously, where is the other side of the river?  I made it to Eau Claire for a quick bathroom break and a refill of my bottle of nuun.  It was so easy to carry an extra tablet with me to add to my bottle of water!  I had a few icicles clinging to my eyebrows.As tempting as it was to stay where it was warm inside it was time to get back outside and carry on.  The amount of snow accumulating on the pathways was amazing.  It was quite the winter wonderland!Unfortunately running through all of that snow gets pretty tiring and my last few miles were a pretty slow shuffle.I was also getting pretty cold.  When I hit my car at 2:57:45 I was done.  I called those last 2 minutes and 15 seconds as good.  After brushing off all the snow that accumulated on my car I took off my wet pullover and bundled up in a hoodie, fleece vest, scarf, hat and gloves.  I grabbed a hot chocolate to warm up.

That brings week two of the holiday bootie buster challenge to a close!  I’ll touch base on how I did on my goal for the week and what my goal for week three is later.

• Running: 25.7 miles = 25.7 points

• Spinning: 38 min = 3.8 points

• Strength training/stretching/core: 47 min = 2.6 points

• Workout of the week = 1.0

• Fruits/veggies/FB participation = 9.0 points

• TOTAL = 42.1 points