You Know You're Running In Really Cold Weather When...

• You wonder if you're going to be warm enough in two moisture-wicking shirts, a fleece vest, fleece jacket, running hat, gloves, insulated tights and warm-up pants on top.
  
• Less than half an hour into your long run, despite being fully charged, your iPod says "I don't want to run in this weather-okay?"
• You're bummed about this because you were listening to the new Phedippidations where that crazy Steve Runner guy was swimming in Boston Harbor on New Year's Day. Now THAT is nuts. Running when it's subfreezing, on the other hand, is perfectly normal.
  
• Your Garmin is very slow to update your pace, the display looks faded, and at more than one point during the run indicates that you are a running at a 10:99/minute pace. You think you must be crazy the first time you see this. It happens again and you realize that you did not just hallucinate this.
  
• You hear layers of thin ice sloshing around in your insulated hand-held water bottle.
  
• Passing that 60-something old-school runner lady who likes to run early on Saturdays, you say hello and think "man, her hat, jacket and face are COVERED in icicles!"
• The drivers who normally pay you no mind as they drive past on the road next to your regular running trail are turning and giving you double-takes.
• Upon returning to your vehicle to swap out water bottles, you look at your reflection and think "man, my hat, jacket and face are COVERED in icicles!" and understand why the drivers are giving you the Stone Phillips eyebrow.
  
• Your energy gel in no way resembles a gooey, smooth substance, and you must bang the packet against a rock to soften its contents.
• Double chocolate coffee......caramel delight coffee.......vanilla nut coffee........swiss chocolate almond coffee.....straight up hot black coffee........er-whoops. Lost a mile there lost in my brain, dreaming about steaming hot caffeinated beverages.
• You can't see...the no-fog sunglasses are fogging up.
  
• OUCH. Just slid on the ice that couldn't be seen through the fogged up glasses.
• You realize that you only THOUGHT you hated that treeless section of trail that was always so miserably hot in the summer. You soak up the sun's warmth-just a few degrees below freezing on this side of the trail-and realize that this is THE most awesome part of the trail after all.
  
• You have the best final mile of a run in a long time, realizing that you didn't die or freeze to death after all.
• You get home, get in a hot shower, and decide to go back to graduate school just to write a master's thesis proving that indoor plumbing is the greatest modern innovation ever. You commence research with twenty good, steamy minutes.
  

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger-and often isn't as miserable as you thought it was going to be once you take the plunge and get out there! At least....that's the lie I'm telling myself until April rolls around.