Track and Field Blogs - Lori Zimmerman

This is my first time ever blogging, so please bear with me. I have been dubbed the "Grandma" of the group due to my advanced age, but I'm doing my best to keep up with my speedy teammates, in many more ways than just running, since coming on board last month.

I grew up in west Michigan, but I've lived in milder climes for most of the past 20 years. And I haven't spent the entire month of December in a single time zone -- much less a single state, or in Michigan -- since I was 16. So this past month has been not only a culture shock, but a weather shock as well, with temporarily leaving my current home in Austin, Texas to join the Hansons team in Rochester Hills!

As if to welcome me back to the cold dark north, the skies opened up and dumped several inches of snow the first night I was here -- and it hasn't seemed to let up since. My first few days I shivered basically all the time, bundling up for workouts looking like an onion-layered Michelin Man. Lying awake at night listening to freezing rain pelt the side of the Tienken house, I wondered, "What have I done?!"

Things improved markedly once I outfitted with awesomely warm Brooks apparel, which keeps me reasonably toasty on our runs through the snow -- amazing what a difference the right gear can make! Still slipping and sliding uncontrollably at times on the snow and ice trying to adjust to textures I hadn't felt under my feet in years, I've been learning with interest about various winter-running accessories from Yak-trax to screws literally screwed into the bottom of your running shoes to help grip the ice, but so far have stuck with just bumbling my way along in just plain running shoes. I've been wearing the Dyad, which is reasonably heavy, so I usually can get at least a little bit of traction even in the snow.

Friends and neighbors back home in Texas seem to enjoy calling or emailing to remind me that it's 60 degrees there; my neighbor and running partner Darren kindly informed me that he ran in shorts on Christmas Eve while I struggled in a near-whiteout; thanks for that! I keep getting curious questions as to whether we ever run outside when it's cold. The answer is a resounding "yes." We're sort of like the US Postal Service, in that neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor blinding blizzard keep us inside. We began 2008 by gamely running outside despite the 15 inches of snow that fell between 1 and 7 am here!

It may be cold, but the snow sure is gorgeous. My new teammates likely already have concluded that I am indeed senile for marveling over it, underscored by last week's venture back outside after our morning run, solely to go take pictures on the trails along the creek behind Dinosaur Hill. I felt like a little kid who'd never seen snow before; couldn't get over how gorgeous it looked with the sun coming up and turning everything to silvery frost. So... here's to the winder wonderland outside! Despite its beauty, I think we'll all be happy to head south for some southern sunshine next week!