Congrats to Bare Lee for passing 500k. Looks like you will easily pass my total from last season.
Most are complaining about too cold of temperatures. I'm the opposite. It's been spring in my area since January, a very rare event. I can barely get a few k's in after taking the kids to school before it warms out of range. I hope to reach a total of 400k, but it's going to be tough. For me, it's not worth getting out early in the dark just for the winter challenge, sorry.
Thanks Rick. I wish I had your problem!
The funny part is almost 300k of my total was run in October and November, if I recall correctly. Most days since then it's been too cold or snowy or both to run bare, even on my one-mile run-commutes. And now that I've discovered the Sockwa G4s, I don't really mind running shod, so I've been doing more early morning running in the dark cold winter wonderland, and getting into it. Feels like I'm on the verge of becoming a full-time early morning runner. I love the peace and quiet, and the nocturnal landscapes, and it's such a great way to start off the day--"Hey, I've already accomplished something!" as I read someone express the sentiment.
Today unfortunately my wife was awake when I left so she prohibited me from running and I took the car. It's -11F/-24C, -30F/-34C windchill. She's probably right, if I were to slip on the ice and fall, I could get into trouble, especially since my dumbphone has been malfunctioning lately (I'm holding out for Sprint's 4G Lite network to cover my area, before I upgrade, so that in the meantime I can keep tethering my 4G phone for fast internet access.) Almost all the compacted snow on the sidewalks has an icy surface now, although a fair amount of the streets are becoming clear and dry, and there's no cars around in my neighborhood at this time of day, so I tend to run out in the middle of the street. Even she admitted that if she were asleep, it would've been ok for me to run, but knowing that I was out running would've kept her awake. It's a pity, I wanted to get in a nice five-miler this morning.
In any case, I've put in just enough bare mileage in Dec, Jan, & Feb to maintain some semblance of callus, so I'll keep looking for opportunities to run bare in the fairgrounds. No sense in letting them go soft now that we're so close to spring. Hopefully, within a few weeks it'll be possible to run bare in the morning too, but it all depends on what kind of moisture we get. March is typically our snowiest month, and I'm pretty worthless in fresh snow. I've developed a little bit better tolerance for compacted snow, but not for any length of time. I've gotten extremely mild frostnip 3-4 times this winter on my one-mile run-commutes. This translates into 15-60 minutes of pain after my feet warm up, and no lasting consequences, and I'm getting better and better at knowing when to pull up, just before I go over the threshold, and slip on my G4s.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure next winter I won't go out of my way to run bare. Last winter I didn't mind running back and forth in the fairgrounds, or around my little loop by the U of M bus stop, because I was discovering my tolerances, but the last few weeks it's been pretty boring. Plus, I'm getting tired of thinking about bareable conditions all the time. I would rather just go out and run an out-n-back shod in my G4s.