Frozen Long Run

On Thursday, we heard that Thursday night / Friday morning had potential to be the coldest night in 15 years! Sooooooo.... P-E-R-F-E-C-T timing for my last long run before the "Securian Winter Run" half marathon this Saturday. Yay Winter! (FML)

It was 16 below zero (air temp) when I got up on Friday, so I put off my run until after my meetings for the day. (At that same moment, it was 46 below [AIR TEMP!] in northern MN!) When it was time to run, this is what I saw:

I "layered up." I WON'T list all the layers, but I WILL say that I came up with a new idea that worked WONDERS. Over my Under Armor and tights (but under my pants), I put on a pair of tighty-whities. I stuffed a sock down the front to help keep "junior" warm:

AND IT WORKED SO WELL!!

Here's how I looked as I was headed out:

Early in my run, I saw a can of Coors that was frozen to the sidewalk:

BUT, we all know that Coors is technically thinner that water, so it's no surprise that it was frozen....

The trail along the Mississippi was in pretty good shape. It was a thin layer of hard-packed snow:

I snapped a photo of myself 1.5 miles into the run:

Here's a close-up of the frost starting to form on my lashes in that photo:

I pulled the ski-mask up and down as I needed to - sometimes I needed to cool down my face from all of the hot air I was exhaling.

A failed snot-rocket all over my glove.


Running past the U of M around mile 3.

My camera started freezing up, and I learned that I needed to shield the lens from the wind. If I didn't, the lens cover wouldn't open up, and the resulting photo would look like this:

Just past the Greenway Trail (around mile 6).


Looks very similar to the last photo, but it's about another mile farther.


Crossing the Ford Bridge around mile 9.

I think that ended up being the most "epic" photo from the run. Here's a close-up of my eye and hat:

After that photo, my lens got a little smudged, so the rest of the photos had a bit of a streak through them. Here's one from around mile 11 that's a little "streaked:"

I did another loop through a residential area to turn the 12 mile route into a 14 mile run. This tweet that I tweeted just after my run says the story:

Numbers: 14 mile run, 1:44:01 total time, 7:25 pace, 3 below air temp, 19 below windchill, 8.4 lbs of clothes, 0 frozen body parts!

I snapped a photo when I got back to our yard:

And then I snapped a photo after I had been in the house for a minute and all of the ice had started melting:

Even though I got in a decent 14 miles in sub-par conditions, I'm STILL not super confident going into this weekend's half marathon. I'm not looking to PR - just looking to finish another race. I MIGHT be able to "winter PR," so I might shoot for that. (My 13.1 PR is 1:22, but my "winter" 13.1 PR is 1:28.) We'll just have to see what this weekend holds!!