I’ll be honest; my Wednesday morning run was painful. I woke up that morning, slightly nervous for my longest weekday run yet. But I checked the weather, saw it was already 50 degrees for my 9 am run, put on shorts and headed out the door with a smile on my face. At first, it was great! The weather was perfect, the beginning of my run was downhill, I was averaging about 9:15 a mile (which is pretty good for me). And then the uphills happened. And I got hotter and hotter and I was dying for a glass of water.

In short, I was miserable. I’m sure I spent about 90% of that run with my ugly, “I’m miserable, make this end” run face on (it’s sadly similar to Kim Kardashian’s crying face). I forced myself to run all the way home, which meant that I actually ended up running 4.2 miles instead of just 4. I cannot express how unfun that run was.

So this morning, I laced up my sneakers with dread. To add insult to injury, North Carolina suddenly decided it was winter time, and my run was literally 20 degrees colder. I layered up with a running jacket, long leggings, gloves, the whole shebang. I hate cold; it’s why I moved from New England to North Carolina for college. So I was peeved that I had to not only go outside in 30 degree weather, but spend forty minutes running in that cold. But then something amazing happened: my run, while admittedly slightly slower than Wednesday, was not nearly as painful. In fact, once I got past the first few minutes and warmed up, it was pretty pleasant: a complete 180 from my previous run.

I’m not sure if the lesson here is that running in frigid temperatures can be a good thing, or if it’s more of a “get back on the horse” type message. Maybe it’s both.