Winter Training

I’ve been bragging and going on about the lovely winter weather we get here in Johannesburg. This may be true, but it doesn’t mean the winters don’t get cold. At the moment South Africa is very cold. A strong cold front passed through earlier this week and large parts of the country is covered with snow. We don’t get snow often in Johannesburg, once every ten years or so, but we do get the cold that comes from the areas that do get snow. At the moment, this is the case.

What this really means is that the evenings and mornings are cold, while the days are warmer with lovely sunshine. This week the minimum temperatures in Johannesburg are below 0°C (32F) every morning. At my house it was -2°C (28.4F) yesterday and -3°C (26.6F) today.

About -2.5°C (36.5F) when I left for work this morning - sun shining.

For me this is cold, but obviously it is far from extreme. As long as the wind doesn’t blow it is fine. So I carry on with my early morning runs through the winter. Again, if the wind doesn’t blow it is fine. I just dress warm and run. Most people, including other runners, think I’m crazy to go out between 4 and 5 AM with the temperature below zero. I obviously don’t agree with them and since I’ve become a member of blogland I know I’m not crazy. When I look at the winters people in the Northern hemisphere get I know how lucky I am to be able to run outside through the winter. To give you an idea, I’ve been running for 29 years now, but I’ve never run on a treadmill. I’ve never been forced indoors by winter. For that I am grateful.

So I was out the door just before 5 this morning. When I got back from my 9.2km run the temperature was -3°C. There was no wind and the run was great. I know I look like I’ve just come from a line-up at the local police station, but I ran!

The running shorts over the second skins might look a bit dorky, but they keep the cold out where it matters…

When I walked on my lawn this morning there was a white layer of frost covering it. The rest of the garden is also feeling the cold with frost and black frost taking its toll.

A lot of the plants in my garden look like this with black frost this morning.

Apart from this I’m happy. Winter is here, the mornings are cold, but I’m training. The forecast for the next few days look like this:

Happy running everyone!