Monday morning, I set out to run and it was about 35 degrees outside. I’ve never run when it was that cold. I layered up with long pants, long sleeve tech shirt, sweat shirt and a stocking cap. I didn’t find any gloves the first time I looked, so I went out with bare hands. Big, I mean BIG, mistake. I made it about a half mile and made the decision to run on home. This was way too cold for running.
Tuesday morning, I decided to give it another try. It was, again, about 35 degrees, and I layered the same. This time, however, I found a pair of gloves! They were thin cotton stretchy gloves that I didn’t think would do much. Boy was I wrong.
Where Monday I had felt the cold on my face and my knuckles chill me all the way down to my toes, Tuesday was different. I no longer felt the cold on my knuckles, so this made the cold on my face seem not so bad. It was really amazing. Then, of course, about a mile into my run I started getting really warm and took the gloves and hat off. The rest of my 4 miles that day were a breeze.
I’m not sure why the gloves made me so much more comfortable, but they did. The sweatshirt was a little too warm by the time I finished running, so on Wednesday I just used an additional cotton t-shirt over my tech shirt. This allowed the tech shirt to wick away moisture and the t-shirt to hold some heat in. It’s a system that works perfectly for now. I probably won’t run too much in the cold weather once the half-marathon is over, but it’s nice to know I can. After the half-marathon, I’ll be supplementing my running workouts with exercises I can do on the floor of the living room quietly, without waking anyone at 5:00 in the morning!