Iron Pol

Most people who grow up and live in Wisconsin like to consider themselves fairly hearty and impervious to cold.  Anything warmer than 50F is summer.  It's time to get a jacket when the temps dip to freezing.  And there is no such thing as "too cold" to train outside.

A local running group proved this, once again, this past Saturday.  At 7 a.m. a group of about 50 runners gathered for the scheduled 14 mile training run.  The temperature, hovering just on the negative side of 0F.  For the first time I wondered if my tights would be enough.

At the final moments before the run started, I made two decisions that turned out to be very fortunate.  First, I threw my sweats on over the tights.  Second, I switched my regular fleece running gloves for my Columbia ski gloves.  Before getting out of the car I had already added a fourth layer on top, consisting of a light technical t-shirt, my long sleeve cycling jersey, a medium weight long sleeve top and my top layer technical top.

The only thing I could have done to improve things was use vaseline on my exposed face.  It was cold enough to warrant it, but not too bad without it.  Luckily, we had minimal winds.  Though cold, it was a great day for running.

Great with the limited exception of hydration.  Though I wore my Amphipod under two layers of shirts, the tops froze shut and the water froze enough that there was still ice in the bottles after the 45 minute ride home.  Luckily, this is a supported training run, and the coordinators used warm water for both drinking and making the Gatorade.  Last week, all the drinks froze and they had to scoop Gatorade slush out with pitchers.  This week, it stayed liquid, though it was a bit warm at the beginning.

Despite the chill, it was good to run outside.  Most of the runners who participated Saturday agreed that running outside in sub-zero temps is better than running indoors.  Of course, it can hardly be called race conditions as I've yet to complete a single endurance event with temperatures on the wrong side of zero.

Still, the marathon is less than 10 weeks away, so we have to get the long runs in regardless of the temperatures.  Next week, it's 16 miles, and we're all hoping the temps will be a bit warmer.  We might be from Wisconsin, but we're not COMPLETELY crazy.

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