The cold, the month, and the races.

Today seems absolutely balmy compared to the last week. I revel in the heat of above-freezing temps! On Monday morning, the temperature was a -24ºC (-11 F) with the windchill. That was nothing though. My brother e-mailed me to let me know that in Canada, it was -40ºC, which is also -40ºF, the temperature at which both scales meet (I will never understand why America uses such a nonsensical, outdated system). This is as rare in Winnipeg as our ridiculously cold temps here in NY this past week. They occur on occasion, but not with the frequency that most people tend to believe they do in Canada. And with that, I will also reiterate that Winnipeg sees 100ºF in Summer (39ºC). Both extremes happily happen in an extremely dry prairie climate, which makes them, albeit marginally, not as bad as the humidity that burdens us in New York City.

February has, for a long time, been my least favourite month, possibly because of having endured the cold of winter and the darkness of the season for some time at this point, but also because, for some strange reason, I historically have had just a whole lot of crappy luck in February. I acknowledge that it might be the aformentioned cold and darkness that have me put on my grey-coloured glasses and thus enhance the bad luck feelings that I have, but nonetheless, it's still the way I feel. Case in point - after my very intense month of work, you'd think things would look better. Instead, I feel a sore throat that I've had since earlier in the week evolving into something of a minor chest cold. Ugh. The one redeeming aspect of the month is of course how short it is, and I rejoice in knowing that, as of today, it is well over a third of the way over and, after only this coming Tuesday, half done.

Today, despite how nice it is outside, I'm not running. Oh yeah, did we forget that I run? Seems that I haven't posted about running specifically since well before the New Year. Anyway, today I'm resting up for the Bronx Half Marathon tomorrow, which will be my first race since December. I'm very interested to see what this course is like in winter as opposed to the heat of July when the event has traditionally been held, but I don't expect any personal records to be broken. I'm still not to the performance level that I was at Queens last April, when I was intensely focussed on 60-70 mile weeks in preparation for my marathon in Vermont. My weekly mileage is probably about 5 miles shy of where I want it to be, due to how extremely busy I've been with other things lately and, to a lesser extent, my aversion to recent weather trends. That said, I've kept my mileage for the last month between 35-40 miles, but only through running typically three runs during the week of 7.3 miles each, and a long run on the weekend. Normally I prefer to run 5-6 days total.

Tomorrow's race starts at 8 a.m., and despite my potential cold coming on, the early start, and the forecast of -12ºC with the windchill (10ºF), I am determined to make it to the starting line. I just have to look at my subway schedules.

At any rate, the weather can't be as bad as last weekend at Nyack State Park, where I went with Jonathan, our Flyer of the Year, our German Rockefeller expert, and a few others. I did two out-and-backs with the German for a total of 18+ miles. It wasn't all bad, as much of the trail was sheltered from the wind, except for about 3 miles, where it was nearly unbearable. I do recommend the paths there, if you've got a ride to get you out of the city.

My target now, should I be able to increase my mileage to at least 55 miles per week within the next month, will be the NJ Marathon at the end of April. Some time ago I was thinking about running Atlanta among others, but taking a vacation in the immediate future just isn't in the cards for me.

We'll see how the training goes.