This cold weather really sucks

I can't recall if it ever got this cold last winter. If it did, I probably didn't notice because I wasn't really working out much at all. In fact, cold weather is actually quite nice, if you can stay inside and keep warm instead of running, cycling and swimming outdoors in the freezing bloody weather!!!

Tuesday night I ran outside before going to swim practice. I only ran for 45min, but half of that time was uphill into a freezing cold headwind. Silly me didn't bring gloves or a hat, I guess I didn't expect it to be so cold. Even after maxing out the heater in the car, I still didn't fully warm-up by the time I got to swim practice. Now, normally I warm up pretty quickly once I jump into the heated pool and start swimming, but Tuesday night I never really warmed up like usual. Also, because it was so cold and windy my arms would feel cold when I brought them out of the water, which unfortunately happens a lot while doing freestyle. I should have switched to breastroke! Btw, I sucked at swimming on Tuesday night. It was a struggle to even hold 1:43's per 100m (we did 16 of them), when I was easily holding 1:35's last week. I guess doing two century bike rides two weeks in a row has taken its toll this week...

Anyway, tonight I'm going to run Town Lake before the T3 group trainer ride. It doesn't look like it's going to get much warmer than 37F (2.7C) today, but I just can't bring myself to run on a treadmill and at least I'll be indoors on my trainer post-run.

Oh, and the best part? I picked tomorrow morning as my first Barton Springs open water swim. It's going to be 27F (-3.3C) at 6am tomorrow morning! I can't go any other time tomorrow and the weekend is chockers with a 75mi ride Saturday followed by a 20mi run Sunday. So I've decided that I am just going to suck it up and drag my ass to Barton Springs in the morning, regardless of the weather. At least the 68F Barton Springs water should feel relatively balmy!

Bring on spring, not summer, spring!

[end of rant]