Frozen Long Run

The middle of this past week was cold. We were below 0 for quite some time during a few days. When it was 8 below 0 on Wednesday morning, I headed out for 9-10 miles.

Part way into the run, EVEN THOUGH I was wearing pants, Under Armour tight shorts, and (most importantly) wind-proof briefs, I felt my penis getting a bit too cold. Well, I COULDN'T feel my penis - THAT was the problem. This has happened before (and here's the funny story of the first time it happened), but it's not something I try to do. Obviously. So instead of hopefully hitting 10 miles, I cut it to under 9. And I stopped to "re-adjust" at one point and tuck it farther between my legs for warmth (which lead to my testes being smushed against my legs as I ran which was not pleasant, but worth it to not lose my penis).

I snapped a photo as soon as I got in the house (and I Instagrammed it too):

Caption: Frosty eyes, brows, lashes, and collar after 9 miles in 8 below weather at 5:45 this morning.
#FrozeMyPenisABit #ItsAllGoodNow #StillSayALittlePrayerForIt #IfYouAreSoInclined


Slight close-up on my eyes (from the low-res front-facing camera on my phone).

A lot of the brim of my hat was frosty too (much like my more-visible collar in that top photo), but you can't see it because the hat is white.

Well, my penis was fine. It had to thaw a bit and was a little achy as that happened, but I lived.

One of my toes started to ache, and I figured I might have frost-bitten that a little too. I had to use "regular" socks because all of my "cold weather" socks were left in my bedroom where my wife was still sleeping. Oops. I took off my sock and saw a dark toenail:

And it was slightly red around the end of the toe.

So I figured I just beat up my toe a bit while running. But it ached a LOT more later in the day. And my toe did NOT hurt while running. So I'm really not sure if it turned black from being smushed on my run, or if I got some frostbite and it turned black from that. Regardless, here's how it looked the next day:

Still purple. Still a bit sore. Still hairy.

Sidenote: that run on Wednesday took December to my highest mileage running month for 2017! I came off the TC 10 Mile and the Minneapolis Halloween Half Marathon feeling GREAT, and then I just kept up the milage. I hopefully still have 1 run to go this month, and I'm already over 90 miles!

p.s. Seriously, if you don't remember the story of the first time I froze my penis, CLICK HERE to check it out. Really.