What's the coefficient for running in the snow?
Wow! That was hard!!
Soon after my running partner and I took off, my first thought was: why didn't I offer her to go for a swim instead? Just walking to the pool would have been hard enough!!!
Snow dumped on us as we ran haphazardly on a medley of our regular routes, sometimes on the sidewalks, sometimes in the middle of the road (where the very rare cars were driving at 10 km/h, giving us ample time to move back to the side!), sometimes on a running trail. Those were the worst, uneven, deep snow terrain making it hard to pull every step out of that mixture. It's not that cold out, about 1 degree celcius, so the snow is very wet and quickly turns to slush. The worst part was when lots of freezing water suddenly rushed in my shoes. After three minutes or so, the water would warm up and my toes would regain some of their mobility, and then swooooosh! again another unexpected freezing puddle. My strength is usually having short strides but a high cadence. Today it was not very useful, I could only do the short stride!!
We ran like that for one hour twenty minute. My running partner hugged the lampost that constitutes our finish line and said she was not going to go further. I couldn't have been more grateful to be home.
So instead of 16 km, we ran 12.5 km. The pace was obviously slower than usual but it definitely was a good workout. I remember thinking after I was done: am I really supposed to ice my legs now? :eek:
Now I don't know if I'll do that again any time soon! Thankfully the snow never lasts long in Vancouver...