Shi-ite It's Cold! (Well At Least For DC)

As I mentioned in last week's Training Log - winter has hit the DC area (finally).

For my 6am run on Wednesday, Jan. 13 the temp  "Feels Like" 5 degrees.  This is my coldest run so far.  And, I get colder than most - maybe it's because I've spent most of my life in  Los Angeles where "below 60" was "freezing" and a good excuse to find indoor activities.

I'm sure for you folks in the Northern portion of the US, this is not that cold, and the recent NFL playoff game in Minnesota was much colder.  But, for me...it's damn cold!

Since I would be leaving the house quite early, I laid out everything I was going to wear the night before (yeah, I'm one of those people).  I basically thought it would be good to "double up" on what I would wear if it was 30 degrees and see how it goes.....

Below is a shot of everything I wore.  Quick rundown:

• Four layers on top:
• Short sleeve shirt + arm warmers
• Two long sheet shirts
• Shell jacket
• Two pair of tights - one "heavier" and one on the "lighter side"
• Extremeties
• Neck gaiter thing I can pull up over my cheeks and chin and tuck into my jacket.
• My thickest wool hat for my bald head
• Two pair gloves - one thicker and one thinner
• Two pair of socks - one thicker and one thinner
• Vision - head lamp since the first half of my run is before sunrise.
• Shoes - NB Zante - which are my "heaviest" shoes.

I put ALL of this on before leaving the house, drive 30 minutes to my run (which is close to my office).  So, by the time I start my run I'm pretty toasty....my thought is this will help the first 10 minutes before my run warms me up....it was more like 30 seconds.

Man....that's a LOT of clothes....recalls thoughts of "Randy" in Christmas Story, and that episode of Friends when Joey put on All of Chandler's clothes at once.

So, how did it work?

• Well my head got a little hot around mile 5.  Us bald guys usually have a number of hats of different thicknesses, like hair-blessed folks might have with gloves. Probably gonna go down one notch next time.
• The two pair of socks thing was a first for me.  Worked well.  No frozen toes.  Not much "feel" for the road, but it was 5 degrees after all!
• Other than that...peachy.