Bare Lee is now in a battle with Yvonne. Yvonne is ahead by a toe.
10 runners with 200+ km
4700+ km for the group
28 more days to go in the Challenge.
Haha, I can't believe I'm competing in something. A slow, old guy like me should never have a chance to win anything related to running.
That said, . . . our Arctic blast/polar vortex finally lifted yesterday, but we got a coating of snow so I stayed shod. This morning, however, I was able to run-commute 2.4 miles (3.9 km) at 14F/-10C, no windchill, with one less layer top to bottom: no footwear, no long underwear, three instead of four top layers, thin wool mittens instead of my thick sheepskin ones, and no face mask (although I kept the balaclava on under my cap). The sidewalks are still covered with icy, compacted snow, but the main roads are pretty much clear, and early in the morning there's little traffic, so I ran out in the middle of the street, on dryish pavement most of the time. I did have to dodge a few semis, but it's easy to hear those guys coming from a long ways away.
According to the Accuweather forecast, there should be nothing but doable qualifying temps from here until the end of March. But whatever happens, I'm just so happy to be running carefree-bare again! I won't have to worry much about temps or footwear again until December, and I doubt I'll have to return to the fairgrounds again to get in my tactile stimulation. The only question is snow, but once we're above freezing, I should be able to handle that as well.
As YOW has said, this has been the worst winter for barefoot running. It's amazing that Yvonne has been able to put up such consistent mileage throughout, and she's kicking butt in the unofficial sub-freezing category, where the real challenge lies.