It's 3AM...Why am I STILL UP???

My downstairs neighbors clearly think that we're all still in college. They've been playing loud music for a while now, and I can't sleep. Nice of them, right? I understand wanting to party and all, but come on....IT'S 3AM!!! At least turn the bass down!

Well, since I'm up, I thought I'd share tales of my 8 mile run with all of you. Or the handful that read my blog anyway. You know that snowstorm that I was talking about? Well, it happened, just not quite as predicted. Life in the Midwest and all that. It hadn't started snowing when I went to bed on Friday night, so I thought that maybe it was going to pass by us.

Score!

And then when I woke up at 7 AM, there was still no snow. It really must have blown by us! So I happily went back to sleep for a little while longer. Unfortunately, my happiness was short lived. A little before 9 AM I woke up for good, ready to run. I looked out my window, and there was the offending fluffy white stuff. Lots of it. Complete with wind. So I putzed for a bit. Made myself some oatmeal and some tea. Turned on the television. Pondered my outfit choices. Time was ticking away so I did make the executive decision to get dressed and move my butt outside.

It didn't feel that cold out at all. And the snow had mostly stopped. The wind, however, did not leave with the snow. I made my way down Irving Park towards the Lakefront path, having to hike through huge drifts of snow in the process. My brain started re-organizing my run...pace was going to be secondary to remaining upright it would seem. However, when I finally made it onto the path, I found that it had been pretty much cleared and that there were a lot of other runners out there! It was such a nice scene. In order to avoid heading too far South again, I decided I was going to run North to Foster Avenue, then South and see how far I would still need to go once I got back to Irving Park. I ended up going to where the Lakefront path ends, actually! I've never run that far North before...it was truly surreal. But I did get some great views of Lake Mich (looking wonderfully choppy and gray).

But oh that pesky wind. As soon as I turned to head South (a little over 3 miles into the run), it started pounding me. Hard. I looked at Joanie Garmin, who told me I was running a 9:54 average pace. Sweet...that's over 30 seconds faster than my long run times used to be per mile! I decided to press on and see if I could maintain this pace, at least until I was on the final half mile stretch home (snow dunes on the sidewalks, remember?). I don't know what it is about really cold weather and my nose, but I just couldn't breathe! I was literally trying to gulp the air through my mouth in order to keep the snot from pouring out my nose.

Charming, I know. This is why all the boys like me.

I hit Irving Park at just over five miles and figured (correctly this time!) that if I ran to Belmont, turned around, and came back, I'd be set. The wind was still hammering away, but my pace managed to creep up to 9:50 per mile, so I straightened up, said a prayer, and kept on going. When I got to Belmont and turned around, the wind decided to make my last mile Hell. To add insult to injury, my iPod quit on me as well. All I could hear for the last mile was the sound of the wind and cars whizzing by me on Lakeshore Drive.

Then came the wind tunnel. That teeny stretch on Irving Park between Lakeshore and Broadway. I'm not a small girl. I'm not even what you'd consider a very skinny girl. The word "slight" does not come to mind when describing me. However, the wind was strong enough that, as I was trying to avoid a rather large bank of snow, it slammed me into an iron fence.

Ouch. That did leave a mark.

Nevertheless, I made it home, cursing the last few steps.

This is not my happy face

Overall, it was a hard run. Much harder than a long run should be, I think. But it was so worth it.

And as a final note, the music is still playing downstairs. I think we're going to have a little chat in the morning. Oh wait...that's now isn't it?