The freezing cold long run morning

I recently sat at my kitchen table on a cold winter morning, eating a small bowl of oatmeal and asking myself; “Why am I going out for a 3 hour run today when it is 10f?” Yes it seems ironically funny and it is something I ask myself almost every Saturday in the winter. For the most part I run with a group from the Saint Louis Park Lifetime Club and we all meet at 8am in the winter for our Saturday long run. If it is January then everyone is training for a spring marathon so we all have differing distances. If we are in a global pandemic then the chance that everyone is training for a marathon is slim so people are just out to run 10-15 miles just to run. *Crazy?

So what motivates me to get out? Here are a couple of items that help me:

1. Sign up for some race that you are training for and you will have to get out at some point during the day. Granted the 8am time is hard in the winter and in Minnesota it is always cold at this time. But getting up and out early and getting it done means you have the rest of your Saturday to do all the house work you planned.
2. Run with a group! There is nothing like a group to keep you motivate and committing to joining a group is one of the best ways to committing to running. Even better is committing to meeting a person on that morning. If they are part of the group that is better since if they drop out you will not have an excuse not to go.
3. If you can see the weather will get better in the afternoon then run in the afternoon. Face it, sometimes it sucks to run by yourself when it dark, windy and -5f with a -20f windchill.
4. Reluctant admission: You can skip a long run. No one is making you do this.