I may be crazy!

A few years ago I remember seeing people out running in the cold, in the rain, or at night, and I would think -- sheesh, they gotta be nuts.  Well, I think I'm becoming one of those people.

I ran around Donner Lake today.  When I left the house the temperature was 24.8 degrees.  I suppose someone in Canada might disagree, but that is fucking cold to me.  Mostly, I think, it's a mental game, because once I was out there for a mile or two I was fine.  The first mile is a difficult one, though.  Here it is (south side of the lake):

I would've thought I'd need YakTraks or something to keep my footing, but everything was frozen very hard, and keeping traction was actually very easy (a little tricky, maybe, on the downhills).

The lake itself was beautiful, and the sun was crisp and bright:

At this point I was warmed up and "into" the run.  Good thing, 'cause my path quickly (and not unexpectedly) devolved into this:

I was again really surprised to find that I was steady on my feet, and ran this without incident, if even slower than usual.

The run on the north side of the lake demanded a lot of attention, as the traffic was moderately heavy and the space on the side of the road was very narrow on due to the snow accumulation.

I ran the whole thing 20 minutes faster than I did in the Turkey Trot in 2007.  Huh.

7.92 miles, 10:18 pace