Running update: More like skiing

I suppose this is the time of year I could be recounting the horrors of holidayness for you all, but I'd wager you see that most everywhere else in the whole wide world, so there's no real need for me to do it here, too.

If, for some bizarre reason, you feel the need to get my take on the absurdity of the holiday season, you might refer to some of my previous years' posts for that. Be warned that these are not the merry, blinking, squealing with holiday cheer kind of posts one might expect from someone with my pleasant disposition (that was a joke - happy holidays)- so just proceed with caution. And know that there will be swears.

Instead of bitching about how my neighbors have covered their entire house with lights and an animated nativity scene complete with baby Jesus singing Jingle Nuts on a loop, let's instead talk about how fucking cold it was this morning when I went for a run.

Friends - it was cold.

How cold was it, Finny?

So cold that if I had balls, they'd have been frozen right off and would probably still by resting on my front porch where I first came into contact with the morning's temps while outfitted in all of my running clothes.

Now, I know that a lot of you crazy whores live in places that get much colder than it does here in sunny NorCal and let me just tell you that this fact means very little to me when I go out to run around in it, so don't get all "Well, it was 20 below when I went out to the snowmobile this morning and I had no problem so you should shut up" because unless you were going out to run three miles in that weather while slipping and nearly tearing off a left leg while you were doing it, I don't give a rat's behind.

Really. I don't.

Because when it's in the high 20s (I think it was 29) when you pull on your running tights and then put on the long-sleevey top and the special Don't Freeze Your Tits vest and the insulating gloves and the ear-warmer headband - all on the advice of your now frozen Bubba who came back from walking the dog with his face frozen in a painful grimace - it matters not the temps elsewhere in the world.

Because you are Here. About to go running in twenty-something degree weather.

And, hey, by the way, watch out for the Everything because it's all iced up.

This was Bubba's advice to me and it was life-saving because LO it was icy. And being a NorCal girl from the inside out, I can tell you that I'm ill-prepared to be running around on icy streets.

Now, snowy streets? Fine. I ran while we were back in Kansas and the snow was falling and the streets were all snowy and it was AOK. I never slipped. I wasn't all that cold. A good time was had by all. And by "all", I mean me and the funny dog who'd escaped his fenced yard and was running free across the school's baseball field being chased by his very slow and ill-equipped owners.

But icy roads and 29 degree weather? Um. No. This really isn't my specialty. In the sense that I'm not awake enough at 6am to calculate the precise movements required to dodge leaves frozen to sidewalks, black ice holing up in the cracks of the street, frost accumulated on lane markers and so on.

To put it plainly, my run this morning - while invigorating and if-I-do-say-so-myself quite quick - was terrifying.

I slipped. I slid. I screeched. I pissed off my left groin muscle when trying to control a surprise slide into the ditch. I skied from one side of the intersection to the other without any proprietary ski equipment or the know-how to cross-country ski.

And, less terrifying but still ever-present, was the cold.

My ass cheeks, I believe, are still monkey-butt bright red right now from the effects of the bracing morning air caressing them roughly through the thin layer of spandex in my running tights for three miles.

My fingers just regained feeling to all of their tips.

My cheeks are now deadened against the weather and are turning black with frostbite.

OK, that last one's not true - but they were cold, too.

What's really probably deadened from exposure are my plants.

Whoopsy.

Now, it is well-known that I'm not so good at protecting nubile plant growth from the harsh effects of winter weather, but for some reason I put plants out there anyway, knowing full well they'll be frozen soon enough.

Last year, I was pleasantly surprised by the arugula and fava beans that took a frost and kept on growing, but I sort of don't think the frozen little tendrils of the pea plants are going to, like, thaw out and spring back.

That would be a miracle.

I do, however, hold out hope that this frost wasn't enough to discourage my kumquats from fully ripening, since they are citrus and are supposed to do well in this weather of ours here, so hold out hope for that.

See those ice crystals? Yeah. Welcome to California.

The nasturtium, however, is totally toast. Which is fine. That's what it's supposed to do - get all frosty and then get all brown and wilty and then spend the rest of the winter acting like a cover for the soil underneath. Fine.


Everything else? Well, I hope it had fun with the extra month of frost-freeness because our first frost date was 11/1 and, welp, today was what I would consider our first frost and today is not 11/1.


We'll see what this means for our last frost date, but I can tell you what it means for running - it means I need a hat. And maybe some more insulating pants. And a new hobby for a while - an indoor one.