Warming up to running in the cold

This past weekend I did my longest run so far in my training - 14.5 miles - mainly on the river. I had two nights of fairly difficult hill workouts out in Brookline last week so I thought I should run on a flat route. My roommate Betsy and I headed out early on Saturday in order to fit our run in, once again, before the snow storm was supposed to hit on Saturday night. Sure enough, the snow did come in. I was very glad about my choice to motivate on Saturday when I woke up to icy/ snow covered roads on Sunday morning.

Over the past week I have had a few people mention to me how they cannot believe I can run outside in the cold or snow during the winter. I guess a lot of runners subject themselves to the gym once the winter arrives, and spend their time on the elliptical or treadmill or whatever other machine is to their liking. To me, that is more insane and miserable that layering up and walking out my front door in freezing weather to run for an hour. I tend to feel as though the more excited you get about running, the less cautious you become with the weather conditions.

I am pretty sure one reason that I don't mind running in the cold is because I went to school in Maine and I still ran through the Maine winters, which tended to be even more snowy and cold then winters in Boston. My real motivation was so that I could gossip with my friend Katie. We would meet up at least three days a week to go on a 5-6 mile run so that we could chat and catch up on what was going on in each other's lives. I was playing squash at the time and this was well before I started running any sort of races. For Katie and I, our run was analogous to two people going out to coffee or getting a drink. Our runs were very social.

Now that I run marathons, the distances required of me make it impossible to be picky about the weather that arrives. I tend to look back on my runs up in Maine and am happy that my transition into cold weather running was so enjoyable.