GAME OVER

Monday, 5pm
Temp -2, Feels like Temp -29

Every winter, we runners from the New England area tend to bitch and moan a bit (or, in my case, a lot) about having to deal with the evil forces of nature.  This winter, in particular, has been pretty rough.  I know, I know....I say this every year.  But, this year truly is different.  Case in point, I currently have 70 inches of snow in my front yard.  All this said, those of us who sign up for a spring marathon, and not surprisingly there are many, are still going to train in the winter.  We don’t have a choice.  Well, we do, but you know what I mean.  We run inside, we run with ski gear on, we run with spikes on our shoes.  We run.  This week, my family has been up in NH, skiing at Cannon Mountain for our winter break.  We've been doing this for the past 5 years, and every year I find myself fighting my way through the snow and cold, which tends to be monumentally worse than it is down in Boston.  Every year it’s really damn hard to continue to train over break.  Every year I complain and swear off spring marathons.  And every year I do it all over again.  This year is no different.  Until now.  I am sad to say that Old Man Winter has officially taken me down.  The game is over.  Winter has won.  For 3 out of the past 5 days the high has not been above 5℉.  On Monday morning at 6:30am, the temp at Cannon was -17 ℉ with a windchill of -40℉.  Wait what?  Back in January, I wrote a post entitled "still cold" which outlined the reasons that it might be too cold to run outside, 'might' being the key word as I still went, regardless.  But this week?  This week I had to wave the white flag.  Today, I begrudgingly give you the top 10 ways to know that the game, in this case winter vs. runner, is finally over.  When winter has called the final shot and you simply can not run outside.  I honestly never thought it would come to this.  And I keep laughing about it because that’s really all I can do at this point.  That and pray for spring. 

TOP 10 SIGNS YOU KNOW THE GAME IS OVER

1. When you open the door to go outside you aren't able to breath in.  Literally.

2. Your hair looks like this (see below) within 30 seconds of being out there.

3. Your dog takes one step outside and then turns around and stares at the door to go back in.

"Really?" 
~ Lucy, age 14

4. You put on every layer that you own plus your hat, gloves, ski goggles, neckie and hand and foot warmers, because for a brief moment you think you might be able to pull it off, and after taking 3-4 steps you are forced to turn around and go back inside.

5. Your husband puts his hands on your shoulders, looks at you dead on and says, "It's just not going to happen today."

6. You see signs like this everywhere you go:

7. When you tell your children to go outside and get in the car they immediately start to cry.  When you tell them it's so you can take them to the movies, they still don't want to go.
8. You are ready and willing to pay $20 to run inside at a crappy gym on a treadmill from 1982 that shakes with each step because it's all you've got.
9.  You have no indoor running gear so you run 10 miles on the aforementioned treadmill in long underwear bottoms and a cotton tee. (I'll spare you the photo here, but it wasn't pretty)
10. You have tried everything - inside, outside, running in place - and nothing seems to fly.  So you put your feet up and let it go.  For now.

Listen to this:
Snowed In (feat. Rivers Cuomo) - Big Data