Into a Winter Wonderland

I'm not a winter fan. In fact I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to say that I hate winter. Hate it! I hate the snow and the ice and the cold. But since I live in the Midwest I have about five months of winter to deal with (November-March). It snows at least a little through these months. In the past I've been content to hide indoors and only go out when the snow has stopped flying. This year I'm trying something different.

My brother and his family were in town this weekend and we spent a ton of time hanging out with them. It was wonderful. But I was complaining to my very athletic brother that I wanted to start running but I didn't want to go running in the winter. We don't have a treadmill and the sidewalks are way too slick for fearless running. The conversation went a bit like this:

Me: I do want to start running but I'll probably wait until the spring.

John: Why?

Me: Well, I don't have a treadmill and I'm not going to run outside.

John: Why?

Me: The sidewalks scare me. I'm not comfortable on that kind of ice.

John: Where do you live?

Me: Huh, West Des Moines

John: And there are no fields out there?

Me: Run in a field?

John: Yep, go running in the snow. If you fall, who cares. It's soft. Find a nice snowy field and run. It doesn't matter where you run. As long as you have fun and get some benefit from it.

He's so smart! So I decided to try it. And I am happy to say that it works. I couldn't run for very long but I was able to run. I was in boots and jean and my Yaktraks but I was able to run. I'm excited to make it a regular exercise program. It was actually pretty exhilarating to be out in the cold air running, like when I was a kid. And I didn't worry about falling.

My other thing is that I've started pricing snowshoes. I want to trek out into the woods and I like the idea of using snowshoes. So far most of them have been in the $50 to $100 range but I'm going to keep looking a bit. I need to learn more about the difference. I'm excited that I'm starting to get out into the winter weather. Perhaps these months won't be quite so wasted after all.