Hey everyone! Since the Arctic Vortex is leaving most of us today, I thought I’d like to have a quick chat about winter. I feel like winter gets such a bad rap, but there are seriously so many awesome thing about winter!
- Pretty snow
- Snow days (or at least for me, shortened work days that I get to do from home)
- Cooler temps for your runs, which means way less sweating and overheating than in the summer. Plus you have an excuse to buy new running clothes to keep yourself warm!
- No humidity!
- The best holidays of the year happen in the winter
- The excuse to wear really cute boots, hats, and scarves
- I don’t have to squeeze into shorts or worry about how I look in a bathing suit!
- Lots of hot chocolate and cookies. Not exactly healthy, but still a winter perk!
- Hockey season (let’s go Flyers!!!)
- The opportunity to try lots of fun winter-specific sports like skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, etc.
My favorite season is fall because I love the low temps and pretty leaves, but winter comes in at a close second! I’ll take a sunny 30 degree day over a 90 degree humid day. I’m thinking about how hot my wedding was as I type this 🙂
To be fair, this picture was taken on Ruth Glacier in Denali National Park, Alaska in June. But this is how snow makes me feel!
So when I saw that Just Me and My Running Shoes was playing a game of Winter Running Tag, I had to play along! I’ll take any excuse to discuss winter and running in the same blog post. I’m answering the questions she posted on her blog, and I’m tagging all of you to play along!
What is your favorite thing about Winter?
Both me and Karen from JM&MRS had the same answer for this one…CHRISTMAS! I know I have a ton of things on my list at the top of this post, but Christmas is my favorite. I’m going through some Christmas withdrawal right now for sure.
What is your least favorite thing about Winter?
Wind chill. I think without a wind chill factor I would be able to spend a lot more time outside hiking and running in the winter. For example, yesterday I walked to downtown Media from my office in 14 degree weather…but the wind chill was 0 so it wasn’t as much fun as it should have been.
What is your favorite piece of Winter running gear?
This is a tie between the Brooks Infiniti Headband that I gave away on my blog for the December blog hop (yes, I bought myself one too!) and my gloves. I think I could handle running in a tank top and capris as long as my hands and ears were warm! But I’d rather not try that out.
What is your favorite way to fuel for long runs in the Winter time?
I’m bad at this, but I usually eat a Clif Bar – and my favorite winter flavor so far is Pumpkin Pie!
Favorite Winter drink?
Hot chocolate! Ghirardelli makes the yummiest mix ever! I probably drink this about 3 times a week in the winter!
Where do you prefer to run in the Winter? Indoors? Outdoors? Track? Treadmill?
Outdoors, but it took me a while to get to that point. I can’t run in my neighborhood at night, so winter outdoor runs are usually a special thing that I do on weekends or on days when I get home by 4:00!
What is the current temperature where you are right now?
It’s amazingly 25 degrees here in Philly with no wind chill! Pretty warm 🙂
What are the first three things that remind you of Winter?
Snow, bare trees, and cute winter boots
What has been your favorite Winter run so far this year?
I had an amazing 7 miler in Forbidden Drive a few weeks ago – it was a distance PR for me, I got to use my YakTrax for the first time, and the snow was so beautiful!
What race/races are you currently training for this Winter season?
Disney Princess Half Marathon on February 23rd! And I’m still trying to figure out the little 5ks that I want to do in January, February, and March. I’m also doing the Love Run Half Marathon on March 30th but I don’t know if that counts as winter anymore!
A scene from my favorite winter run this season
So now you’re it! Copy these questions and answer them in a blog post! Or answer any of the questions in a comment below. And jump on over to Just Me and My Running Shoes to check out her answers too!
What do you love about winter? Who else loves running in winter more than summer? And more importantly, who is glad the Arctic Vortex is over?
Mom in the Mtns 
I love your positivity!!!
I’m not this positive in the summer! I don’t do hot weather. I complain and whine and refuse to go running outside 😦
I have to say that I’m pretty happy it’s getting a wee bit warmer for us. I’m more of a spring/fall gal than winter! 😉
Haha today I came home from work and was like “Oh it’s so warm out!” and then I checked the weather and realized it was only 29 out. It’s crazy how that would have felt cold a few weeks ago, but it’s so warm now! And it’s going to be in the 60s on Saturday! I may love winter but I am definitely looking forward to a weekend long run that doesn’t involve snow!
RIGHT? When I went to the gym yesterday morning I was like – OH, 25 degrees is just lovely!
Happy running this weekend!
Love your answers, especially the Ghirardelli hot chocolate one. How did I not know they have hot chocolate mix? I’m going to keep a lookout now! Hope to see you at Princess!! 😀
It is soooo good! I can only find it at Walmart for some reason if that helps. We definitely need a SPA Disney Princess meet up group when we’re all down there!
Love this and that there’s another winter lover out there besides me! I feel like I’m always defending the season to my warm weather friends that escape to Florida for the winter, or whine constantly about the cold. I need to play along so I think I’ll link up tomorrow.
BTW, I nominated you for a Sisterhood blog award! Details are in today’s post.
OMG I’ve never found anyone else who likes winter! Yeah, there are some bad winter days (like this morning when my commute went from 20 minutes to an hour and a half due to ice) but I think it’s more enjoyable to be outside on a winter day than a spring day! And I am totally coming over to your blog to check it out! Thanks so much!
That vortex can bite me! Tuesday was horrible. It’s going to be 60 here tomorrow! (Albeit rainy.) That’s such a cool picture of you from Alaska! I just can’t even fathom that much snow in June. 🙂 I do like snow though in general. Not too sure about running in it yet, but I’ll get there.
Well that picture was actually taken basically on the top of a mountain in the Alaska Range (right next to Mt. McKinley/Denali aka the tallest mountain in North America) so it’s always snowy on that glacier! We had to fly to get there, definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever done! The rest of Alaska was not covered in snow and temps that day were actually 80 degrees! And yeah, Tuesday was really rough, I can’t lie. Since we don’t usually have weather that cold I’m still a fan of winter 🙂
That glacier has got to be one of the best winter pictures I have ever seen. I actually don’t mind winter. But I agree, if it wasn’t for the wind chill, we would be outside hiking or running. I am a fair weather runner spring through late fall mostly. But when there’s a nice winter weekend, I try to get out and run. I live on a rural road so I have to run when it’s light out. Unfortunately winter limits that…. I am looking forward to later sunsets so I can get in my evening runs again!
It’s so awesome to find another person who doesn’t hate winter! Yay! I hope you can get outside for a run soon. And the craziest part about that glacier picture was that it was taken in June!
You guys must get really cold weather in Philly too, so when you say you love winter…you mean it! There are definitely aspects of winter I really love too and if it’s not too windy, you can find me out for the occasional winter run too!! 🙂
Hahaha well we usually get pretty mild winters with an occasional blizzard. Last year I think it only snowed twice, which is whey I’m loving winter this year! Today it’s 60 degrees but rainy, so our temps are all over the place!