Yes, it's freezing

note- picture of Antarctica, not Colorado, we don't have penguins here, although right now I think they'd love it.

Just to let the world know that Boulder has not frozen over yet, here is a post. After weeks of unseasonably mild (60s and even 70s) weather, I knew we were doomed for some major changes. Well those arrived this weekend, during Brad and Pete's annual holiday party (more on that in a sec) where it started to snow ever so slightly, increasing to a full-blown storm overnight. We awoke yesterday to temps that hovered around 0-5 degrees F in the morning and warmed up to about 10 maybe? Running in that was bearable, although not recommended for the weak of heart, as it took awhile to warm up. Due to the company I was running with however, opting out was not in the cards. It ended up being a snowy and uncertain adventure out towards the res via Wonderland Lake and Eagle Trail.

Today however was a whole different ball game. I set out for a run at 9 a.m., with my usual cold weather running attire, which really doesn't differ that much from temps ranging in the 30s to teens. I added gloves (fleece lined) and my headband (in hindsight I should have worn a hat on top of it, I know better..) and headed out. It was literally BITTER cold. The always trusty weather.com said at least 5 degrees so it seemed that would be similar to yesterday. 20 mins in my left hand got really cold, as in bitter cold, as in it wouldn't warm up. I tried all the tricks: blowing in my glove(dumb as it just turns the evaporated air to ice), putting my hand into a ball in the glove and covering it with my sleeve. Nothing worked and I just got colder. It started to really bite. I came to my last resort- taking my hand completely out of the glove and shoving it down my pants for a few seconds. That did nothing. Neither did the armpit. My only option was to book it back home. The catch in that however was that when you run harder, more blood rushes FROM your extremities, such as your hands. When I finally got back to my place, both my hands were frozen; I had to run water over them and then wait for the thawing to begin. Scary to say the least. Fortunately I came away unscathed, but refused to go outside the rest of the day. Later on the news I found out that we broke 2 records in less than 12 hours. Yesterday's low and this morning's low, which was freaking 19 below 0, and that's Fahrenheit! So I am going to take a wild guess and say that the temps during my run were around -10 maybe? I passed a guy who was also running, who had a snow mustache. Tomorrow sounds balmy as we are supposed to climb back up in the teens and 20s, woot!

Now back to Saturday night. I ended up yapping away in German for a good part of the ever-entertaining white elephant gift exchange with a certain double Kona winner from Germany. After doing several double takes, I came to the conclusion that it really was him and asked him what he was doing here in Boulder. Seemingly happy that he was able to speak in his native tongue, we talked about our Kona experiences this year (from not enough salt tabs to too many) and accepted white elephant gifts, one a little more risque than the other. After being talked into meeting up the following morning for an "easy" run (it's not that hard to convince me) I called it a night and went home, only to wake up to antarctic-like weather conditions. But I couldn't cancel, from one German to another, when we say to meet, we don't back out. And I did not want to come across a wimp. I survived the run better than expected and apparently even impressed the Norminator with my running "speed". ha. Fun times.