Three Things Thursday: warm, hot & chilly

1.  As promised & talked about in yesterday's vlog here are some details about making fleece neck warmers.  When I made my first one (the orange one) I know I laid the green one down on the fabric, cut around it and sewed it up.  As you will see in the picture the two do not match up in width at all.  I have no good reason to explain this other than I'm a complete free lance sewer.  I don't follow patterns to a T, if I even do at all.  I just kind of wing it & make it all happen. Sometimes this ends in disaster, but often it all works out in the end.  Here is a picture showing the width of the neck/face warmers.

The green one (Bondi Band Neck Gator) measures 9 1/4 inches.  My fleece ones measure 10 1/2 inches.  Even though I didn't picture it, the purple Buff one that I also showed in yesterday's video measured at slightly under 10 inches.

To clarify, I L-O-V-E Bondi Band, I just did not prefer the neck gator for running.  My son wears it all the time to play outside.  I also liked Buff, again, just not thrilled with it for my winter running needs.  For fun, I should try and figure out all 12 ways to wear the Buff.  Anyone know how to pronounce some of those words?!?!

Here is a picture showing the length of the neck/face warmers:

The longer ones are 18 inches, the shorter ones about 10 3/4 inches.  Pick and choose your length.  Here are two fabulous pictures showing me modeling them:

 

Ok, enough of the neck/face warmers.  You either like it or you don't.  Some people don't use them, others swear by them.  If you are not sure, it doesn't hurt to try.  I've done my job of yapping enough on my point of view on the subject.

2.  In my video yesterday I mentioned about how I sweat so much and get so hot when I run.  This caused me to do some reflecting.  When my friend Dane commented on my post he mentioned how he warms up enough on his own.  It got me thinking about maybe I'm over dressing for my runs?  This has been a tricky area for me.  When it's dark & cold how can one not bundle up.  Just walking out the door is half the battle and I don't want to be discouraged before I even get moving.  I have also had past experiences when I've under-dressed and suffered miserably in that fashion.  I'd personally rather be too hot than too cold.  

Still, it can be tricky when you run several miles & loop in different directions because depending on what way you are going you do/don't need those extra layers.  On Tuesday's morning run (temp of 27, feels like 21) I put on 4 layers, one of those being a breath thermo jacket that warms up as you run.  At many points I was roasting, then at others (when I turned and the wind was cutting right into me) I was so thankful for those extra layers.  I do conclude that I did have on one layer too many. 

Yesterday, when I ran it was mid-40's.  That's close to tropical for us here deep in the mid-west winter.  I had to purposely only allow myself 1 long sleeve shirt and a vest.  It was woooooonderful!  This morning it was "only" 32 degrees and I again made myself scale back on the layers.  I'm a big girl, right (?)....I'm tough....  While it was nice to not feel so heavy loaded with layers and not roasting hot at some points I still became very warm and was a very hot sweaty mess when I was done.  Guess, I can't help it....I'm just HOT STUFF :)

3.  I am participating in The Chilly Challenge hosted by The Purple Giraffe & Running Escapades.

It's a fun virtual way to participate in a challenge as we start off the new year and work to get/keep ourselves in gear for 2013.  You pretty much do your own work, unless you have someone on your team that is local, but as with a lot of these things there is a great sense of community within the challenge and definitely within your own team.  Once I was introduced to this idea I fell in love with Janine, who is head of Team Giraffe.  So I joined that team to work toward and log my miles on for the month of January.   It is not too late to join this challenge.  You can join at any time this month and retroactively add your miles back to Jan 1st.  Obviously we want you on Team Giraffe, it has a lot of fun, crazy & overly competitive people.  Yeah, that would be ME!  Even if you are not one of those, we'll over compensate for you and we'll happily take your miles that you log for our team & the challenge.  How about.....join Team Giraffe!!