When Bennie doesn’t want to do his morning walk, I know it is pretty chilly. That was what we ran into this morning, the thermometer read a cool 6*F and we got as far as the second neighbor’s house when Bennie decided that was quite far enough.

How the roads looked last night and it didn’t change any overnight

He turned around and headed home.

By the time we got the 200 yards or so done, he was shivering pretty good and I dropped him off inside the door. However, I have made myself a promise to walk every morning that I can this year because when I don’t do a walk, the old body never seems to quite get itself in sync.

So I headed back out the door and headed down the driveway for my first-morning walk without Bennie in quite a while. I was already geared up for the cold and while it was chilly, I’ve been out in worse. Actually, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it might be and I was feeling pretty good when I got back.

After the dog walk at 9:00 AM, I had to wait a bit to head into town to go for my run. Out here is still very icy (it was too cold to melt the other day) and Augusta is not nearly as bad. Plus I had to go to ACAR and get the truck inspected, at 2:00 one of those things you gotta do up heah. So I would be running a little later than usual.

Based on my morning walks, I thought that I would probably run outside, even though the bank clock on Outer Civic Center Drive showed the temp to be 18*F and under my self-imposed low-temperature limit.

Close enough or so I thought.

I bundled up and headed out the door, in the winter I purposely go out a lot slower and let the body warm-up before I attempt to run my normal stride. I can’t say that I was ever warmed-up today. Even after finishing, I still felt chilled, so I guess I should have packed my running vest too, I was one layer light.

While I was chilly during the run, it really was not all that bad (now that it is done and a memory), other than by 2.5 miles, I had to cut the run short to scurry back to the gym for an emergency sit-down meeting in the men’s room. 🙂 One of those you will do it now things.

Decent run, but this did remind me why I set that 20*F minimum temp guideline and that guideline might be moving up a few degrees to 25*F.

I am finding that I spend enough time outside in the cold with 3-4 dog walks daily, that I no longer feel the need to run outside when I have a perfectly good treadmill that allows me to run in shorts and not worry about icy patches.

Plus the crazy motorists who think that a guy in a safety yellow jacket and bright orange hat is a great chicken opponent or at least a good target. Distracted driving is still a real thing around here, so you have to be paying attention whenever you are around vehicles. Keep your head up and eyes on swivel.

However, I wonder if I am coming down with something because after I got done running, I felt absolutely lifeless and didn’t do anything I had planned post-run except for foam rolling. I gotta keep an eye on that and maybe up my Vitamin C intake for a few days.

The truck passed inspection and I headed over to the local natural food store. I asked about a product that I am reading about in Lifespan and one of the owners and I talked for almost 30 minutes on a variety of subjects including aging and how it is actually affecting people they knew. The person just needed someone to listen more than someone to talk to, so I did. It was interesting and I learned a lot about their life, how fast life is in today’s world, thoughts on aging, being ignored by the church after someone they knew had given so many years of their life to it and some other subjects. It was a good conversation and this person is someone that would be neat to know better.

An interesting day and one where I learned much more than I expected to. Always a good thing.

Originally posted on Aging & Retirement – My Thoughts, written by Harold L. Shaw, Jr.