The Coldest Run
The snowstorm I described at the end of last year may have been a preview. January opened with an unusually cold spell. Where I was living, even the all-time low-temperature records were broken, if I remember correctly. One dawn, the forecast said minus seventeen. In exposed, moonlit areas, it was reportedly close to minus twenty.
As things happened, that was exactly the period when I could only run in the mornings. So I experienced cold I’d never felt before — in a place where cold like that was rare. That’s when I first learned about layering. Not scientifically at first: I simply put on everything I had. Three layers. A regular long-sleeve shirt and two tops over it. Rain wasn’t a factor at those temperatures, but wind protection would have helped — except I didn’t have anything for that.
That’s when I decided to prepare my running wardrobe for extreme conditions: warm tights, gloves, a beanie, and a tightly woven outer layer. The fleece-lined, body-hugging running tights have been part of my kit ever since — and with age, the threshold at which I put them on keeps dropping. Back then, I’d switch at around minus six to eight. Today, I wear them at zero.
The beanie and especially the gloves are essential. The rule of thumb for dressing to run is to add roughly ten to fifteen degrees to the actual temperature — that’s the difference your body will make once you’re warmed up. So at minus five, dress as if it were plus five or ten outside, without running. In my experience, this holds true: if I’m a little cold at the start, I’ll be comfortable by the halfway mark. If I’m not cold at all when I step out, I’ll be overheating before I’m halfway done.
In truly bitter cold, though, even that initial chill can be enough to make you turn around and go back inside. Everyone has to find their own threshold. Some say you shouldn’t run below minus ten because the sudden rush of cold air into heated lungs can do damage. I’ve never experienced any ill effects myself. One thing is certain: I haven’t run in anything colder since — though I’ve come close, and for longer stretches.
A Year of Extremes
The rest of the season was unpredictable. I logged runs at plus ten and minus six within days of each other, multiple times. Still, in March, I ran three hundred kilometers in a single month for the first time in my life. Another symbolic barrier crossed.
Spring arrived late that year — only in the second half of April did temperatures reach fifteen to twenty degrees. By late June, the opposite extreme had arrived: I ran once in thirty-four degrees, unusually hot for that climate, though summers like that have since become the norm across much of Europe. There would be years ahead when the heat — not the cold — became the real challenge. Even for me, and I handle heat well.
Kraków
In July I noted a minor milestone: run number fifteen hundred. Then, at the end of summer, the annual work trip took me to Poland — Kraków, to be precise. Before leaving, I’d already identified a park near the hotel. I found it, and ran two-kilometer loops in it every morning before the packed daily schedule began.
Those stolen hours made all the difference. I sat down for each day of the conference series in a completely different frame of mind after the morning run. If I hadn’t gone out, I’d have spent the entire day waiting for my chance to run — and that would inevitably have eaten into the social obligations: the long group dinners that stretched late into the evening and were essentially mandatory. They didn’t suit me. My lifestyle had changed alongside my running: I prefer to go to bed slightly hungry, relatively early. A heavy late dinner is my idea of a nightmare.
Three Hundred and Eight
By the end of the year, the records kept stacking up. After three hundred kilometers in a single month, I passed three hundred outings for the year: three hundred and eight, to be exact. That meant I’d had only two months’ worth of rest days in the entire year. Six runs a week, nearly every week.
That’s serious addiction. But it felt right. Running had become an inseparable part of who I am. And the best was yet to come.
2010: 308 runs / 3,250 km
Since 2002: 1,652 sessions / 15,541 km