10 miles, 9 degrees

I just read this story about just how cold it can get in Canada.

I've never been to Edmonton, but I was in Mont Tremblant once for a wedding when it was something like 30 degrees below (in Celsius, which translates to "horribly, horribly cold" in Fahrenheit.)

So at the risk of earning a cupcake badge for this blog post, I ran yesterday. It was 9 degrees, 0 degree windchill. Any Canadian friends who are reading this are now unfriending me on Facebook for my utter wimpiness.

There are not unusual temperatures for the upper Midwest. I've lived in the Midwest since shortly after MTV was born, so it's not like I shouldn't be used to it.

I've run every winter since 2008, except the two that I was pregnant with M and C.

And yet I cupcake out like no one's business when it comes to running as the mercury dips much below, oh, I'd say, 15-20 degrees.

So yeah, going out when it was in the single digits, yeah, that was a big deal. And yes, I froze my buns off.

But instead of whining about it, I was thinking this weekend about what gets you through a run like that. The temperature may suck, but there were some very, very good things about that run.

1. Friends who will meet you in a dark parking lot at 6 a.m. when it's 9 degrees outside. Very, very good friends.

2. The first few miles, no matter what the weather, are usually spent griping about work. Vent away!

3. Given that nearly all water fountains are off  this time of year on the lakefront, the one year-round fountain that runners know as the CARA trough is a highlight and a destination point of the run. Yeah, we look forward to it.

4. A few more miles into the run, and we're breaking into little subgroup conversations. Work, kids, boyfriends, travel (two friends just got back from Nepal, I can't hear enough about this trip, seriously). It's great. Lots of good-natured commiserating about the cold. I'm blowing snot rockets like nobody's business and no one ever says how disgusting I am. And the normally very stretchy balaclava I'm wearing and breathing into is now freezing stiff and I keep having to reshape it around my face. That is kind of annoying.

5. Midpoint/turnaround for 10-mile run -- Navy Pier, well before the tourists are even out of their hotel beds. How I love your water fountain and your warm ladies' room. Borrow a vanilla gu from J. This is where I realize I have really got to eat better during the week and stop missing lunch. And drinking water. Good grief. I am kind of shaky, and grateful to my friend for sharing her stuff.

6. Running alongside J (another J) who has become a dedicated runner in the past year and kicked ass at the Chicago marathon this fall. We run north into a nasty headwind that hurts our foreheads. But we also talk about the solace that running gives us. This reminds me why I get up early on Saturdays to run, even when it's dark dark dark and cold cold cold. It just gets my head on straight after the work week. She doesn't have a scarf or anything covering her face, and I don't know how she stands it. I'm still monkeying around with my balaclava, which has refrozen into a weird contortion that is leaving my neck exposed. Ugh.

7. "Solace" conversation is interrupted by running into one of our running friends, who got a late start. He is inexplicably really, really cheerful. Everyone in our group loves this guy, and I'm reminded why.

8. Water stop, yay! At some point around here, the cold causes my iPhone to crap out, and therefore the Strava app that is tracking my run. I guess iPhones do not like really cold weather.

9. The end of the run is quiet and determined. My friend M's hands are bothering her and she feels stiff. I feel like someone could bounce quarters off my rigid hamstrings. We're all just ready to have the run done. And yet we have that badass feeling, too. Not that many people would go out and run on a morning like this. So there's that.

10. We go to Starbucks. As we wait in line, we fantasize what it will feel like to to hold that cup of coffee in our cold hands. M decides to buy everyone some kind of delicious spinach feta wraps that I devour like a wild dog.

When I get home, I snuggle next to the space heater in the basement. For a long time.