The hills begin... in the freezing cold

Today was my first time ever running hill repeats. You'd think that a triathlete who has been training for I guess 7 years now would've done them before, but I had not. There are hills everywhere on my run routes, so I just run one when I come to it. Well, this time hill repeats are a part of the schedule, so I did a few today. Aside from the obvious hills that run everywhere I actually have a really good one conveniently right on my own street. I live in a dead-end road that is merely half a mile long. My driveway is in the middle in a bit of a valley before it just goes straight up to the end at something like 10% grade, which is what I was looking for. Perfect. I was able to complete all of my repeats during about a 20-minute span of time and didn't have to deal with a single passing car.

What I did have to deal with was the cold. It was an exceptionally chilly day today. It was 12 degrees when I went out and it had actually gone down to 10 when I came back. I shudder to think how much colder it might have been if the sun hadn't been out in full force. But the worst part was that it was windy. Apparently the windchills were below zero, so that made things extra-fun. Remember when I said a Gore-tex jacket will take care of everything and it almost doesn't matter what you wear underneath? The key word there is almost. My legs were numb most of the time as I discovered I had finally reached a point where I probably should've worn some extra layer on my legs, but of course you never know that until you get going out there. Towards the end my face was absolutely frozen, as well as my mid-section. My eyelashes were frozen and at one point I blinked and couldn't get my eye open again without using my hands. By the time I was finished I took off my jacket to find that portions of my shirt were frozen solid, a clear indicator of just how chilly it was out there. Most of my skin was bright red, but it was nothing a nice shower didn't fix.

But hey, it's all part of training around here, and it was the one run this week in which I did not have to ride my bike beforehand, so at least I got to start out dry and relatively warm. And the other good news is that it is supposed to be in the upper 40's this weekend so I am guessing my long run will be done in SHORTS!