A window of opportunity to run

The weather has been atrociously cold and I hadn't run in a week and a half.  I woke up yesterday and it was mid-40s, the first time above freezing in a week.

But no one at work had brought their running clothes.  (How hard is it to keep leggings, worn shoes, a top, a wind jax, cotton gloves, a skull cap and a towel in a file cabinet?)  So for the first time in a long time I ran alone at noon.

I resisted all the reasons why I shouldn't run and should just go to lunch instead and headed out towards the Capitol.  The next bad weather was closing in fast, with the wind picking up and the temperature dropping eight degrees in the time I was out so I was glad I was out taking advantage of my best opportunity to run in two weeks.  By midmorning today it's supposed to be the coldest it's been here in 20 years.

I went up the hill and around the backside of the Capitol, down the new path to the visitor's center, up the stairs to the plaza behind it, back down the stairs and up the pathway to the street again, down Capital Hill, through the pocket park to the Mall, around the carousel, over Labor Hill, up Capitol Hill again and back to my workplace by Union Station, four miles, two pounds lost during the run and 48 dropped in three years.  Now it's time to hunker down again until the weekend when conditions might be more accommodating to running again.