Frozen

Ellen: Clark, Audrey's frozen from the waist down.
Clark: That's all part of the experience, honey.

Last night, the temperature was in the 20s, and compared to where it's been for the past few weeks, that felt positively balmy. So, when I went out for my 4 mile tempo run, I put on fewer layers than usual - a long sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, and windbreaker, with a pair of tights rather than my fleece pants.

The terrain outside is still pretty uneven. Moving from nicely shoveled sidewalks to loose snow to packed snow to ice patches is a challenge (and tweaked my right knee a little bit). I made an effort not to look at my pace on Paula Garmin, but just to go for that all-important "comfortably hard" feeling. It felt good to open up, and between the increased effort and the music of Lady Gaga on my iPod, my run was over before I knew it.

It was pretty easy to ignore the tingling feeling in my legs.

I got inside, and without those distractions, that tingling feeling demanded a lot more attention. I got undressed to get in the shower and discovered that my legs, from my waist to my knees was bright red (I guess my Recovery Socks kept my calves warmer). Uh-oh.

I quickly got in the shower, careful not to keep the temperature too warm for fear it'd warm me up too fast. Then I put on warm jammies and a robe, covered my lower half with a blanket, and drank a lovely glass of lukewarm water. One bowl of hot soup later, and I seemed to be okay.

The moral of the story is, just because it feels warmer than usual, if that "usual" is 20 below, doesn't mean it's suddenly warm outside.