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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Obligatory "I went running in the cold" post

Yep, it got cold here, too. So cold, in fact, that our pipes froze. I probably haven't mentioned that our floor furnace has been refusing to turn on all winter, and we've been huddling around our space heaters whenever the weather gets nippy. I don't want to ask the landlords to fix it, because they've been going through some pretty serious health problems lately (they actually both have recent cancer diagnoses, which thankfully seem to be responding very well to treatment).
The problem with no furnace is that when you come home from work in 28 degree weather, the pipes are all frozen. It's my fault - I didn't leave the faucets running. But when I left for work the forecast was for temps to drop below freezing well after 6:30 pm, so I thought I'd be ok. Anyway, I spent an hour holding a hair dryer against the wall, and succeeded in thawing the pipes before they burst. We also succeeded in lighting the furnace using a match and the manual ignition switch, so now we're warm and cozy!

But back to running. I got all suited up for the cold:
Warmest tights
Hat
Gloves
"Hotter than hell marathon" shirt - I KNOW, hilarious!
Saints sweatshirt
Hell froze over, what!

I headed out and immediately overheated. I ditched the sweatshirt on the neighbor's bushes ten feet from my door.

My dark, cold run was incredibly fun: not only did I experience the joy and wonder of icicles on the fountain (I mean, it's been years since I've seen icicles), but since Monday was Epiphany, it was the start of Carnival, and the Phunny Phorty Phellows (a Mardi Gras krewe) kicked the season off with a streetcar parade complete with brass band. So I ran alongside costumes and lights and music until I got to the park. This city is a crazy place!
(source)

Next morning, I'd learned my lesson, and skipped the sweatshirt. I was just fine in 25F weather ("feels like 15", they say).
Pretty sure that's the lamest - and warmest - cold weather running story from any blog this week. Ha! At least most of my hot weather running stories are pretty hard-core!

7 comments:

  1. Cold weather is really hard to dress for when running. I too, overheat pretty easily. I have never run in a sweatshirt, I would catch fire.

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  2. I imagine living somewhere warmer makes dressing for cold runs trickier. I know it always takes me a couple of outings to trust what I remember from previous winters.

    We had a similar near-miss with a frozen pipe. So thankful it didn't burst!

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  3. Haha, now that you blasted off on every possible blog post, you have to start your posts with "obligatory", but yes, it's freezing! Off to make a protein smoothie, I'll send u the recipe and a picture.

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  4. Might want to have a project after winter ends to insulate your pipes so you don't have to do this every winter. Had no idea that NOLA ever got that cold! Glad that the Saints won last week, now they need to win this week so SF can host you guys in NFC title game!

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  5. Well, this was disappointing. I was expecting at least a pic of your frozen eyeballs. So, nothing froze, on you? Sorry, then it doesn't count. :-P

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  6. I have an even lamer cold weather story. It was too cruel to post though. When the cold front hit my parent's house in Illinois it was -45 there. In San Diego that day, it was a gorgeous 75 and sunny. I'm used to gorgeous, and this day was especially great. 130 degrees warmer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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