Friday, September 16, 2011

To Glove or Not to Glove - That is the Question

Remember Thursday?  Remember how it was about 80 degrees?  Well, apparently we have changed course and tomorrow morning is looking for a nice 40 degree morning at my 6 a.m. running time.  Well, I will let you in on a little secret.  The cold and I, we don't get along.  Now don't mistake me, I love love the Fall. I love the lack of 90 degree days and the beautiful 50 and 60 degree weather.  Bring it on please!!! After a summer of sweat, I am absolutely ready for the Fall weather.  It is the winter that I despise.   Just not my cup of tea, just how it is.  And I categorize winter as anything under 45 degrees or so haha (maybe I will eat my words, we will see).

Anyway, I am not too happy to see a 40 degree day on tap tomorrow.  Mostly because I have really really bad circulation in my hands and my fingers never seem to warm up.  Anyone else have this problem?  Well, just as a basic recap if you are not as lucky as to experience this first hand (no pun intended - your hands turn white and sometimes a nice purple color if they get really cold and it is pretty painful.  Not ideal when you are running a mass amount of miles.  Even after many miles, my hands never seem to get with the program, maybe I should speed up hmm?

In the past, I have tried many of runner gloves that promise to keep my fingers happy, only to be seriously disappointed.  I have tried hand warmers, but maybe I am missing the point because they never seem to get that warm!  Ultimately, I have used a pair of gloves that are actually my husband's from American Eagle of all places.  These gloves are about 5 years old and are big and bulky, they are far form the normal "running glove." So when I saw tomorrow's forecast and knew that I had to get in my 16 miles regardless I started the debate of what to do with my poor fingers.

After a trip to the running store (which ended in me buying new capris and a long sleeve tech tee - hey tis the season!), the hubby and I decided that the winter running gloves were just not going to cut it and headed for L.L. Bean.  In the end, you guessed it, I ended up buying essentially a pair of hardcore ski mittens. The woman behind the counter told me they were super warm and she wore them for skiing.  She gave me the strangest look when I told her I was going to use them for running!

So here I am getting ready for tomorrow's 13 plus 5k to equal 16 and am in the aged old debate about my gloves or rather mittens.  I know it is very likely that I will need them to start tomorrow morning but that by mid-run I will not want them.  But then what do I do with them?  I have this same problem with tech shirts, you dress in layers but then once you don't need the top layer anymore you are kind of screwed.  Since I am running to the race, I won't have my car or a loop to put the stuff down,  I don't know how people tie stuff around their waist honestly, and I really hate carrying.  That kind of leaves me with hiding stuff along the route and going back for it later.  I don't really know...


Any of you ever have this problem with layers?  Anyone else have cold hands?  Good luck, good weekend, and good night - it is 9 p.m. on a Friday night and I am ready to call it quits.  

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