When you live in Ottawa you can either spend a few months hibernating or you can embrace the season of winter. \u00a0When I first moved to Ottawa from southern Ontario I decided to embrace the winter months. \u00a0I started skating on the canal and took up downhill skiing. \u00a0I admit though, I thought of running as a three season sport. \u00a0I knew that like with any other activity you could “layer up”, but how on earth would you keep your feet warm wearing mesh running shoes? \u00a0Even once I started running, I really did not have any intention of continuing past November. \u00a0I figured the running shoes could be packed away and dusted off once spring arrived.
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Then in 2011 I did a fall 10k training class with Running Room. \u00a0The nights became cooler, then colder, but I found I didn’t mind. \u00a0In fact I found the colder air ideal for running. \u00a0And best of all, there are no mosquitos, black flies or deer flies in winter. \u00a0So, a little nervously, I decided to do another 10k clinic starting in January. \u00a0I discovered that the body is amazing at adapting. \u00a0Do enough cold weather running and you start to find negative temperatures quite comfortable. \u00a0In fact, if those negative numbers are only single digits, you find the temperature quite balmy!<\/p>\n
This winter I did not join a running clinic. \u00a0I have, however, managed to head out on my own (or sometimes with a friend) in every imaginable type of winter weather. \u00a0Trust me, there were days it was hard to get out there, but once I was out I never regretted it. \u00a0And those days when the sun is shining and the sky is blue…how can you beat that in the middle of the darkest time of year?<\/p>\n
All that said, as of today I realized that I am ready to see the end of winter running. \u00a0Oddly, it has nothing to do with the runs themselves. \u00a0In fact, my 11.5k run today was beautiful at -8 degrees Celsius. \u00a0It marked the first time in a couple of months that I ran more than half my distance without wearing gloves. \u00a0The fact is, it is the “stuff” that is driving me crazy. \u00a0By stuff I mean the layers, the winter socks, the hats, earmuffs, mitts, gloves and jackets. \u00a0I started the season having a place for everything, I could easily grab all that I needed and be ready in a reasonable amount of time. \u00a0But now it is scattered, pieces of my running gear can be found in the laundry room, the bathroom, my bedroom (though not actually put away), my kids’ drawers, or my desk at work (where I think my awesome reflective gloves\/mitts are sitting right now). \u00a0I started the season with three pairs of winter running socks, I am down to a pair and a half. \u00a0I’m sure the missing 3 socks will conveniently show up in July (at which point no doubt all of my summer socks will be lost). \u00a0Today it took me almost as long to find all of my stuff and get ready as it took to actually run. \u00a0Due to the amount of snowfall yesterday, I then had to go out in my boots to the car, back the car up to the area that had been plowed and put my shoes on in the car, all to avoid filling up the shoes with snow. \u00a0Yes, the other alternative would be to actually shovel a path to the driveway but we tend to avoid shoveling here. \u00a0With two kids constantly in and out we know that it is only a matter of time that a path will be beaten down so what is the point of straining our backs with a shovel?<\/p>\n
So, do I love winter running? \u00a0Absolutely. \u00a0But does the time come when I am ready for the simplicity of throwing on a running shirt and pants and heading out the door. \u00a0Yes, and that time is here. \u00a0Bring on spring!<\/p>\n
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When you live in Ottawa you can either spend a few months hibernating or you can embrace the season of winter. \u00a0When I first moved to Ottawa from southern Ontario I decided to embrace the winter months. \u00a0I started skating on the canal and took up downhill skiing. \u00a0I admit though, I thought of running […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3amQ2-u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}