Today was a rest day, but let me tell you about yesterday afternoon.

After complaining about the pain I was in yesterday, I ended up having an awesome workout in the evening. I hit up the chiropractor before lunch and that got my flow back in alignment.

I decided that the only thing keeping me from running outside in the cold was my face so I stopped by the Lincoln Running Company and bought a Sauce Frosty neck and face warmer.

This thing made a world of difference. I wore it as a mask for about 5 minutes while I warmed up, but it does get hard to breath through it when you’re sucking wind, so I had to pull it down to just a neck warmer once I got going. It might not be as tight across your face, but I have a ginormous head so it fits pretty snug. Regardless, even having it as a neck warmer kept me toasty warm.

So I went out to Pioneers Park and had a great 2.59 mile run in 20° weather just before the snow came down. You might say, that’s it? Well, even when I was running 5 days a week and 30 pounds lighter, the furthest I ever ran nonstop was 3.1 miles. Baby steps.

I also pulled out my Xero TerraFlex shoes for the 2nd time to give me some much needed traction along the snowy parts of the trail. They aren’t your average running shoe. They have a wide toe well, and not much in the way of padding to allow you to feel the trail better as you run. My ankles and calves are really sore after using them because I worked muscles I don’t normally use when running.

But the long and short of it is, it was a great workout after feeling so bad earlier in the morning. I’m looking forward to continuing to do cardio outside.

One final note. I’ve finally figured out a way to share videos with you on here and not have to host them on YouTube or pay for a service like Vimeo. It’s not perfect, but it’s at least a start. To test it and celebrate, I made a cheesy timewarp video of this run trying out more features than I should. :) Let me know in the comments if you have any troubles watching the video.