Ah, the first run of a new year. It's always a good feeling. Blowing out the holiday cobwebs, sweating off the cookies, hacking up the lung butter from the cold your nieces and/or nephews gave you for Christmas.
Here on the Indiana flapjack, it gets pretty cold in the winter. It's not Minnesota or North Dakota, but it's a good deal colder than most people like. We had a particularly cold December, not getting above freezing for pretty much the entire month. But it's okay. I honestly don't mind running in the cold. In fact... I kind of like it.
Even if it does give me hives.
Yeah. Cold weather gives me hives. Even with my thermal tights and three tops on, I came back with itchy, red, bumpy patches all over my thighs, butt, and belly. (I'm not giving you any numbers, but I will tell you that that is a significant amount of geography.) IT'S A REAL MEDICAL CONDITION, OKAY? It even has a scientific name, look: cold urticaria. Fancy, huh. Most of the time it's just a mild annoyance, although there have been times (usually after a bike ride, since it generates an artificial wind chill) when I've had to eat a handful of antihistamines, jump in a scalding-hot shower, put on two pairs of sweatpants and huddle under a down comforter for an hour before I can stop shivering.
Still, I'd rather run in the cold and deal with hives than run in the heat and pass out in a puddle of vomit. I don't deal well with heat at all, which is a problem, because while we have cold winters, we also have sweltering hot and humid summers! Yay! (Grr.) I figure I can always pile on more clothes to run in the cold (these tights are a new favorite, thank you Jason!), but there is a physical (and legal) limit to how much I can strip off to run in the heat.
Even NASA agrees with me--spacemen can walk on the moon. Not the sun. Also! Submarines can take you far below the surface of the ocean, into the frigid depths! Show me the machine that can take you down into the roiling, magma-filled plumbing of an active volcano. Show me that machine. Cold can be conquered. Heat must just be tolerated, and sometimes it wins.
Anyway. It was a brisk and breezy (the weather, not me) 5 miles, but they were the first miles of a new year, so I am well pleased with them. I saw a good number of other people--runners and dog-walkers and older couples out for a stroll in the relatively mild weather. We have a surprisingly extensive network of asphalt trails in our little town, and it's always encouraging to see others out using them. (Traffic = maintenance = a really good place to enjoy the outdoors = more traffic = more demand = an ever-expanding web of places to run, bike, and walk. Genius, faultless math!)
I also saw a couple teenagers walking away from one of the playgrounds, adjusting their clothes. To which I say, good for them. Better today in the light of sobriety than last night after a little too much vodka-spiked grape Kool-Ade, right?
Came home, took care of my hives, took care of my screaming hunger, took care of a blog entry, and now I shall take care of sitting on the couch. Oh happy new year!
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