Is it Winter Yet?

So we got snow down here in the Desert Wednesday night. I missed my last (probably) opportunity to run in warm pre dawn temps (upper 20's to mid 30's) Wednesday morning because of sleep issues, as I opted to sleep in and try to add an hour to my almost two I got that night. Yes last week was another week of sleeplessness due to various reasons previously posted among others.

That night we had a blizzard. Yes it was windy as hell, snowy and down right cold. We probably only got an inch or two (this is the desert after all). Anyway it hasn't warmed up that much since the storm. I opted to skip Friday morning's run too as it was 18 degrees out, but vowed to make it up on Saturday and get my long bike in on Sunday. Low and behold, Saturday morning comes with a viscous north wind. I paced the house for about an hour or so debating on getting out in it. Finally decided to suck it up and do it. It wasn't too bad other than it was extremely windy and cold. I got home with an "ice cream" headache, but faired well otherwise. Just got in the shower when my surveyors called with some "concerns", so ended up getting back out in that awful north wind for another couple of hours anyway.

Sunday it was beautiful. Cold, but beautiful. Before church, Jeff and I moved hay. He picked up a trailer load for his mom a few weeks ago, and she brought her trailer this weekend. We had to move it bale by bale from one trailer to the next. Fortunately these were old bales so they only weighed about 35lbs vs 50lbs for green bales. Good core workout. That afternoon I layered up and got on the bike. Put in 21 miles. It was probably 35 degrees with a slight breeze out of the NE. Cold enough that I had snot issues the whole time; won't go into details. At about mile 15 my feet had had enough and started to protest by hurting. I was having some slight numbness in the toes - typical of my long rides, but they started proclaiming loudly at mile 15 that it was not the typical numbness...it was cold Darn it! Needless to say the last 5 miles were uncomfortable and it hurt like heck to hobble into the house. Fortunately SD was there to the rescue and lovingly rubbed warmth and feeling back into by frozen feet. Everything else stayed relatively warm, so my mission this week should I choose to accept it... to find thin, wool socks or silk sock liners. Finding these items will be difficult as I live in rural America where Walmart reigns and athletic stores are few and far between, but I will search none-the-less as I've got 6 days till the Polar Bear.

Oh I must mention this... My Mother-in-Law is here this weekend to help us celebrate my youngest's 3rd birthday. Can't believe he's three already, but... Anyway I was gone for about an 1.5 hours on the bike. As I was getting my feet rubbed by SD she asked me if I rode to the highway and back. The highway and back is almost 7 miles. I almost laughed, but caught myself as I thought that it wasn't very long ago that it took me about an hour to ride to the highway and back... so instead of laughing I just said, "I rode 21 miles." Hers eyes bugged out and she gasped "21 miles!" It was the icing on the cake.