To my chagrin, this was the first run in a month (since the Halloween 5K Nite Run).
It’s been bitterly cold the last few days, and due to get worse, although we have escaped snow so far. It was around freezing so I tried the tips from Barefoot Owen at http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Area-Barefoot-Running/boards/view/viewthread?thread=10093236
I normally wear fairly minimal clothing as I tend towards overheating but I wrapped up in 4 layers (vest, t-shirt, fleece and cycling jacket), jogging trousers instead of shorts, gloves and a hat.
I leaped around the house like a crazy for a while and ran up and down stairs, did a few pullups while all dressed up and then hit the street. I thought about taking some water shoes as backup but they were annoying to carry, so I bit the bullet and ran free (free-ish, I carried my new phone which has GPS).
It was great. Maybe it was the excessive warmup, but I went straight out the door much faster than usual and kept up a much faster pace (at least it felt it, and I think my time/pace reflects it, I’ll check in a minute) than I usually would. As it turns out, my average pace was my second fastest in a while. Due to the stupid app, I’m not certain that the time was right, but it will do for now.
Running across the bits of half-frozen grass and a couple of patches of ice/mud felt cold, but my feet still had all their life all the way round, to the point that I felt a small piece of glass stick in my arch immediately and was able to remove it before I’d taken another step. I even felt the squish of what I /hope/ was a berry.
I’m irritate that the iMapMyRun app on my shiny new android phone failed to save the route and time to mapmyrun.com, but at least I was able to read the time and distance off it before I had to force close it. Stupid thing. I’m going to try CardioTrainer, as that seems to save to the phone before trying to upload it anywhere.