wind chill = 18 degrees

6:30am and the alarm goes off. Roll over, hit snooze - 9 minutes later, it goes off again. I'm wearing fleece pants and a sweatshirt, slightly sweating. I think it'll feel good to get outside and run. I drag myself out of bed, which last night we went to bed much earlier then every other Friday. Pour a bowl of honey nut cheerios, open the fridge. No Milk. I look again. No Milk. Pour the bowl back in the box, and settle on a waffle with peanut butter. I check weather.com for a current temp = 20 degrees, but feels like 17.  I layer on all of my clothes - tights, shorts over top, under armor turtle neck, nike hooded running jacket on top. Ear warmers, gloves and a trusty old hand warmer. You know, those things you can buy when you go camping. Show up at the park only to see a really really small group. Only 10 total. While we're standing outside I think, WOW, I have never been out when it was THIS cold. And I keep thinking - and it's only November! Eric, an alumni for a few years now even comments, "I think this is the coldest I will have ever run in." I came to the park expecting to hear 14 miles for the training day. Surprise! It turned out to be 16. That was shocking. I met Judy this morning, who has run four marathons. She will be going to Disney with us in January. We ran 12 miles together, out of the 16. I can't even begin to tell you how cold it was. At one point, I thought the hand warmer stopped working. Aren't those things made for 8 hours? I was sure I hadn't been out there for 8 hours. Each water stop had drinks with frost in them! That is how cold it was. My nose kept running and once I was by myself, I was able to experience "snot rockets", since I only brought 4 tissues (genius, I know). Once I got in the car, my lungs started to freeze up. I couldn't believe I didn't have a lung issue while running from the cold. I couldn't really take a deep breath and coughed like I had something to hack up. Regardless, I ran the 16 miles, drove home, took two puffs of my inhaler and took one hell of a hot shower. I know you aren't supposed to do that, but I was SO cold. So, so cold. Surprisingly, I'm not too tired yet. My legs are sore, but that's because I have been splitting my long runs recently and that isn't good to continue to do. After all, I can't split the marathon. I also haven't run 16 miles since April maybe. But before I would get so tired, my Saturday's would be a bust. So there is some improvement! Now I am sitting at Scott's and we are testing out a new Sweet Potato recipe. We are bringing sweet potato's and stuffing to Thanksgiving dinner. Oh yeah, that was my compromise. I'll spend most of the day at his house watching football and cooking, then we will go to dinner at my parents with the family. In return, I get to spend most of the last 3 days of the vacation - anywhere I want. I thought that was pretty good.