Hot and Cold Juxtaposition...

Toronto's climate sucks for running. Summer is humid and crazy too hot. Winter is windy and crazy too freezing. In the Spring and Fall, there's maybe eight to ten weeks in the year when the temperatures sit nicely between 5 and 15°C.

Fall's over. Air temperatures are now consistently below freezing when I get home from work. So, not only do I have to run in the dark, I have to suffer extra clothing to deal with the cold.

Last night was my first run in sub-freezing temperatures since some time back in March. -3°C. I turned to my finely honed, yet simple, Winter Running Dressing Matrix -- something that was painstakingly put together through much trial-and-error whilst last winter (turns out, freezing isn't the only issue; it's entirely possible to overheat while running in -10°C):

Temp (°C)	Plan
> 0.0	Run in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts.
0.0 to -4.9	Layer long-sleeved UnderArmour shirt underneath above.
-5.0 to -9.9	Add thin jacket; swap shorts for pants / cold-weather tights.
-10.0 to -14.9	Add toque and gloves.
< -15.0	Forget running; go snow-shoeing or X-country skiing instead.

Well... that didn't work out so well last night. To my credit, I realised immediately where I went wrong when I lost the majority of the feeling in my arms about forty-five minutes into the run. Time and distance need to be variables.

Last winter, my mid-week runs solely consisted of 5Ks -- I was out and back in less than thirty minutes. Long runs were confined to the weekends -- when the daytime sunlight served to warm things up a bit. Even then, I ran more than 10K only twice in sub-zero weather. Since then, my endurance base has improved a wee bit. 5Ks are short runs. A weekend long run is 15K or more. Regular, mid-week runs are somewhere in between. Yesterday's run was 13K.

After warming up for the first kilometre or so, I was perfectly comfortable over the course of the first forty minutes. Then I noticed that my arms were starting to go numb. It was a little odd; I wasn't feeling the cold anywhere else -- just in my arms. So, with five-and-a-half K to go, I sped up.

My speed became less about maintaining a reasonable, comfortable pace, and more about trying not to lose fingers to frostbite. I was trying to raise my core temperature and push a little heat into the extremities. I was also flailing my arms every few minutes in an attempt get some blood circulation going. (That must have a hilarious spectacle to anybody walking down the sidewalk.)

I was successful. Sort of. My core temperature definitely went up, and I was really getting a sweat on, but my body's heat distribution systems were apparently unimpressed by this last-minute, desperate gesture and were beyond the point of cooperation. None of that heat ever made it into my arms.

A half-hour later, I finished my run. I was gasping for air. Sweat was literally dripping down my face. My arms, however, remained nearly devoid of feeling. It took five seconds just to open or close a fist. It was the oddest of sensations in the fifteen minutes following the run. I had to warm up and cool down at the same time.

The matrix needs altering.