Baby it's cold outside

Yesterday morning it was a balmy 15 degrees as I met up with the DFMC team for the first official group run. By the end of the workout the temps had risen to 18 degrees, but the weather.com feels like temperature dropped from 15 to 12. No wonder I shivered in the car most of the way home! I wore my fuel belt for the first time and had my first encounter with gatorade slush as the bottles started to freeze. Word among the DFMC team was that the Thursday night crossroads run was even more frigid . . .but oddly reading everyones blog reports and listening to the chatter about the run and the fun afterward made me wish I wasn't nursing a gimpy knee and had been able to attend.

The workout was scheduled to be 4-5 miles for the First Timers and 8-10 for the Intermediate / Advanced runners. While I'm far from advanced, I chose to tackle the 8 mile distance after resting for most of this first official week of training in attempt to avoid serious overuse injury in my left knee and ankle. We ran an out and back course, with the out portion being slightly down hill with the wind to our back, so the turnaround with 4 miles in the legs was extra fun with slight uphill and wind. The DFMC team strung out and I ended up running the first half alone but caught up with Ryan just prior to the turnaround and we ran the last half together. Turns out Ryan works for a client of my company and we knew some of the same people. We chatted about possibly doing a team fundraiser at his place of employment since I am there quite often.

All in all it was a good run, my hips and glutes got a little tight toward the end of the run, and I've needed to ice my knee and ankle today but I'm still in one piece. Unfortuantely, along with shivering on the way home I also got a migraine, but I don't think that damage was associated with the run. Looking forward to the next group run following the holidays.

On the fundraising front, 2 more donations this week. . . Thanks to Steve & Ann Long, and Angela & Andy Wilkins.