Day 2 --- Baby, It's Cold Outside

Well.

Someone challenged Mother Nature to show us what she's made of here in Memphis, and she came to play, baby.  Because it's cold outside.

I think it was something like minus 147 six degrees when my alarm went off this morning at 5:30, so I stayed in the bed until it warmed up to a balmy seven degrees.

What makes it even more fun for us is that we live in an old -- and I mean OLD -- house with varying ceiling heights and sub par insulation at best, so even though we set the thermostat at 72, a more accurate temperature in the house this morning was about 39.   At least that was my guess as I took the quickest shower of my life and prayed for the house to catch on fire at that very moment because of the heat the flames would provide.  (I begged my husband to buy this house 14 years ago.  It's quaint, I said.  It's charming, I said.  It has character, I said.  These days all I can say is Hell-damn.  It's cold.) (Thanks to my Great-Aunt Billie, hell-damn is my favorite ugly word combination.  I apologize if it offends anyone, but as Mark Twain said, "Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.")

As the day wore on and the wind chill never rose above the legal drinking age, it became clear that running outside, especially for wimps beginners, probably wasn't going to happen.  So we teachers moved it inside and did what we tell students NEVER to do in the school building.  We ran up and down the halls.  I'm not going to lie...that part was kind of fun.  Some teachers even ran up and down the stairs.  We really know how to walk on the wild side when students aren't there to see us, eh?

I am pleased, and quite pleasantly surprised, to say that today was easier than Tuesday.  Our coach and a couple of other experienced runners told me this morning that today would be better and that I would only beg for something like life in prison rather than the sweet release of death that I prayed for Tuesday.  (You know, thanks to all the fat-whacking pain and all.)

It turns out that they were right.  I didn't dread the running intervals, and the whole session seemed to go by more quickly.  Plus, I'm not as sore as I was this time Tuesday.  Now it only hurts when I sit down, get up, and climb stairs as opposed to hurting during those activities and when I stand, walk, bend over, or breathe.

Score.

The next walk/run will be sometime this weekend, which will more than likely be Sunday.  Since the temperatures aren't supposed to climb above freezing this weekend, I am sure my ugly shoes and I will find somewhere indoors where Mother Nature cannot control the thermostat.

Brrrrrrr!!!!!