What a cold week. Wow, I’ve not experienced so many sub-zero days in my life (at least that I can remember). It was actually the coldest weather in Minnesota in 5 years. Most of the work week saw the high not making it above 0, but fortunately the beginning and end of the week weren’t too bad.
Monday was a balmy 6 degrees (-6 wind chill) when I set out for a 3.25 mile run on my Metrodome loop. For the most part the sidewalks are still snow and ice covered and I didn’t see many people out this morning. It was a nice clear morning though. I don’t normally run on Monday, but seeing the forecast for the week I thought it might be a good idea to get a run in.
Tuesday I almost ran, but the warm blankets sounded much better. It was -13 and the wind chill was in the -30 range. It was cold enough that the old car didn’t want to start and I had to run to catch the bus so I could at least make some of the meeting at work!
Wednesday I geared up and ran 3.15 miles on the Greenway despite the -6 temp and -21 wind chill. I got passed by 4 bikes on their way to work and saw plenty of tracks to know that I wasn’t the only crazy fool out there. Footing wasn’t too bad considering we had a fresh “dusting” of snow.
Thursday See the above picture.
Friday When I pulled up the weather on my phone it said -18 and no wind, so I thought that it’d be a nice run. When I logged onto the PC after my 4.3 mile run it said -21 and -34 wind chill. I was dressed appropriately and didn’t feel too cold except for after one turn for a little while. I ran along the Greenway to the LRT trail to the Metrodome and home. It was like 5:30 so there was no one out yet really. A very nice quite run.
Saturday was the weekly Polar Bear Run. It was a balmy 18 (7 wind chill) when I left home. We ran 8.5 miles around Cedar Lake and Lake Calhoun. It was pretty nice for the most part, running around Calhoun got really windy and cold. The trails were in decent shape (well plowed and not choppy). So a pretty decent run in 68 minutes.
Sunday group run met at Minnehaha Falls and ran the Get in Gear 10k course. We ran it a lot slower than my race day performance, but it was also a lot snowier and colder. The temp was about 13 which felt pretty nice because there was 0 wind!! The ground conditions weren’t too bad, most of the snow has been smoothed out and is packed pretty hard along the River Road trails. The run ended with flurries coming down and pretty much near perfect day for running.
Weekly Mileage
Running – 25.4 miles
Last Year
Running – 19 miles
Biking – 4.3 miles (indoor)
It was this time last year that I almost gave myself hypothermia on a run due to some stupid mistakes. I survived and offered 5 important facts about Base Training. I offered my 10 Building Bloks of making a blog successful. With the extreme cold weather we are all fortunate to have a house. That wasn’t the point of Running with the Homeless, but is still something to think about. I had planned to attend my first MDRA Polar Bear Run, but it ended up being cancelled. This week’s Foto Friday was from one of our first adventures in cold Minnesota, Minnehaha Falls.