OH CRAP
It’s so cold here that everyone’s burning through power and the grid’s ready to bite it.
We really are Canada’s Texas.
The only things on in our condo right now are my computer and a few lights (we’ve turned the furnace down, but I guess that’s on, too).
Edit: we survived the failure threat! No rolling power outages.
Die another day, Alberta power grid.
NO BUT SERIOUSLY IT’S COLD YO
Oh my god.
OH MY GOD.
So this was the temperature when I headed into campus this morning.
No, I didn’t walk in (though I thought about it, haha). Instead, I took the bus.
Here is the scene from the bus stop in front of our house. Doesn’t the air look frozen?
Anyway. Took the bus in but decided to actually take it down to Brentwood Mall ‘cause I needed groceries. It’s about 0.36 miles from the Fresh Co there to the math building, so I figured walking back to campus after getting groceries wouldn’t be too bad.
Ha.
Have you ever been outside in feels like -53? It’s colder than anything I’d ever experienced, that’s for sure. Like, -40 is cold. But dropping it another 13 degrees? Ouch.
Ouch.
Needless to say, I took the bus home after I was done with work. I was actually surprised at how many students were in my afternoon class given how cold it was.
Edit: there’s ice on the inside of the Kines building doors. Freaking brr.
It’s Cold, Yo
Every year we get like two two-week periods of absolute hellish cold. Usually one of these periods overlaps perfectly with winter break (end of December-ish) and the other happens sometime around he start of Winter semester (mid-January).
We didn’t really have much of a cold snap in December, but HOLY HELL it’s cold right now.
We’re talking “feels like” temps in the -40s.
And it’s just going to get colder of the next few days!
Claudia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Blood Circulation
So the temperature has tanked here and OH MY GOD I AM SO FREAKING COLD
My hands can’t handle this, yo. My hands can barely handle 40-degree weather, let alone teens or negatives.
I don’t know how I used to go on 15-mile walks in like -15 degrees back in like 2018/2019. I suspect doing so is what’s destroyed my fingers, though. They are SO sensitive to cold now it’s actually kind of scary.
I should probably go to the doctor and see if I actually have Raynaud’s (even though I don’t get the color-changing skin) or if there’s something else going on.
IT’S WINTER, YOU SONS OF BITCHES
TIME FOR SNOW
TIME FOR COLD
TIME FOR ME TO REGRET THE FACT THAT I AM A LIZARD
Breaking Spring
So Calgary’s XTREME WINTER TEMPERATURES are really good at lining up for when I am on any kind of break – winter break, spring break, whatever.
Don’t believe me?
Take a look at this graph. Can you tell which week is our spring break?
Yup, you got it!
This happens EVERY YEAR. What in the HELL.
Brrthday Brr
So it’s been pretty well established over the years that it’s always very cold on my birthday up here in Calgary.
I mean, of course it is, my birthday’s in the winter. But I mean in comparison to the days surrounding my birthday, the birthday day itself is always quite a bit colder than the other days.
And it looks like that’s going to be the case this year, too:
That’s hilarious. There’s a DELIBERATE TEMPERATURE DIVE approaching February 2nd, then it goes back up again.
H I L A R I O U S
Y’know what?
It’d be nice if it was WARM during any of my breaks.
Hell, it doesn’t even have to be warm. Just be above -20, please. That’s all I want.
Seriously. I was stuck inside for the WHOLE WINTER BREAK because it was consistently below -30 for like an entire month.
And now? It’s Reading Week and it’s ONCE AGAIN freezing cold out there.
Ugh. I just wanna run/walk outside while I don’t have to worry about getting back in time for lectures.
Rant over.
My FREAKING FINGERS HURT SO MUCH
I think I’ve somehow permanently damaged the nerves in my fingers from exposing them to too much cold over the past several years.
Like…it wasn’t that cold today and I had my big gloves, but by the time I got home my fingers hurt so, so badly from being cold.
Like…to the point where I couldn’t even really move them because they hurt so much.
It used to be the case that they didn’t feel like that unless I spent five hours in SUPER cold weather, but I guess it doesn’t take that much anymore.
I’ve actually wondered if I have primary Raynaud’s, but I don’t have the characteristic skin color changes. So who knows.
Super fun.
It’s so cold it BUUUUUUUUUURNS
Hey so LOOK HOW FREAKING COLD IT IS
It’s been like this for too many days in a row. It’s sunny, sure, but that makes it even worse because my brain’s like “lawl sun make warm. Go outside!” And then I go outside and my brain’s like “THE FUCK WRONG WITH YOU GO BACK IN GO BACK IN”
Anyway, 16 miles on the treadmill gets super tedious even with Kindle books, so I said SCREW IT and decided to walk to North Hill Mall and back to get my last three miles in today.
Got my mega gloves on, my mega jacket on, my scarf, and my headphones to cover my ears, and went outside. It was cold but it surprisingly wasn’t unmanageably cold (probably because the sun was out and I wasn’t walking directly into the wind). The sidewalks were also covered in compact snow which was too cold to be slippery, so I decided to just run to North Hill and see how that felt.
It wasn’t too bad.
My nose got really freaking cold on the way back because I was into the wind in that direction, but I had little hand warmers in my gloves which helped to protect my fingers and I ALWAYS produce a ton of body heat while running, so it was okay.
I don’t know if I’d want to run 14 miles in it (and my iPod would almost definitely not make it that far), but it was okay.
Woo?
BRRR RUN BRRR
It was 10 degrees outside today but I WENT RUNNING ANYWAY.
Well, okay, I didn’t do my full running distance because I didn’t think my iPod could handle that amount of cold for that long. When I walk, I put my iPod in a protective insulated case and then put the case in a side pocket on my cold weather shorts that I wear beneath my cold weather pants, thus keeping the case next to my body to give it at least a little bit of body heat to keep it warm. But when I run, I can’t fit my iPod in its little protective insulated case AND fit it in my running pants’ pocket, so I either have to forego the case and hope that my body heat alone is enough to keep the iPod warm or I have to put it in the case and put the case in my running pack thingy, where it does not get to sit close to my skin and thus does not get any body heat.
BUT ANYWAY, 10 is pretty cold, so I figured both of those options were kind of iffy. So I did some of my distance on the treadmill and then did about 10 miles running outside. It was brr. Even with the massive amount of body heat I produce while running, it was brr.
But it’s good to know that I can run that far in that kind of cold weather, I guess.
It’s Gonna be Brrrr Time
So just a fair warning: Calgary is headed into a deep freeze soon, so I suspect there will be a lot of book reviews on here.
I’m SO GLAD I bought that treadmill last year and I’m SO GLAD I closely followed up that purchase with the purchase of a Kindle. My daily walking is a necessity for me, but doing it inside is so freaking boring. The Kindle really, really helps with that.
Plus I finally get to read again. And reading + exercise? What more could you want?
It’s getting colder.
It’s inevitable.
Calgary winters are long, dark, and sometimes brutally cold. The only two things that make up for them are a) summer days that aren’t usually too hot and daylight that lasts from 5 AM to 11 PM, and b) the fact that Calgary is a very sunny city, meaning even on a lot of those butt-freezing cold days, the sun is out, which makes a big difference.
This winter is going to be especially hard because I usually make it through the winters at least in part by being able to look forward to going down to Moscow for a few weeks over Christmas break.
That’s obviously not happening this year.
And another challenge for this year (apart from, y’know, trying not to get COVID): I got super into running over the summer, as you all likely know if you’ve been reading my blogs. While I feel like I could get used to running in the cold, once there’s snow and ice on the ground, I’m not so sure. The last thing I want to do is bite it on a patch of ice and screw up my leg (or something else) and be out of commission for any period of time.
I mean, I’ve got my treadmill, of course, but I don’t think I could run 14 miles on a treadmill. It’s a slightly different set of muscles and the furthest I’ve ever gone without stopping is about 8 miles.
Plus, running outside is SO MUCH MORE FUN.
So that’s going to suck once winter really sets in and doesn’t leave until like the middle of May.
Circulation problems
I’m pretty sure I’ve got some sort of circulation problem in my hands. Either that or my cold tolerance is just pathetic. I don’t think that’s the case, though, as I can walk in -15 degree weather and be reasonably comfortable…
…except for my hands.
Like, in temperatures where I see a lot of other people either not wearing gloves or just wearing those thin little $2 gloves you can get at Walmart, I’ve got my thick winter gloves on and my fingers still feel like they’re on the verge of getting frostbite.
I don’t know if constantly exposing them to cold weather is making this worse, either. It’s to the point now that if I’m out for long enough in the cold, they ache like hell once I get back inside and get them warmed up (we’re talking aching for several hours here).
I’ve Googled “how to improve circulation” and of course the first result is “exercise!”
Fool, I do that for four hours a day, so that’s not going to help anything if it’s not already doing so. Do they make compression gloves? Maybe I should try compression gloves.
Freaking winter.
FREAKING BRRR
Yeah, it’s that cold here. -30 Celsius is -22 Fahrenheit for my ‘Murican bros.
Fun fact: I have always found “Celsius” way harder to spell than “Fahrenheit.”
Guys
It feels
SO
GOOD
to be able to walk outside and not fight hypothermia the whole way.
Seriously, if you ever hear me complain about any temperatures higher than -10 again, punch me in the face.
In This Blog: Claudia Complains About the Weather (Again)
I’m so sick of this freaking weather, yo.
Save for like three days, this whole month has been full of dangerously cold temps. Ambient temps in the negative teens (Fahrenheit), wind chills in the -20s or -30s (or even -40s). It’s gross, it hurts, and I’m so tired of feeling like I’m going to die of hypothermia on my walks. Where the shit is the “mild winter” we were supposed to get?
A -22 windchill seems to be my absolute lower limit, or at least the limit at which even my stubbornness won’t let me go below. I’m pretty sure I’ve had legit hypothermia on a decent number of my walks. Some of the signs of it include shivering, shallow breathing, clumsiness, confusion, and there have been a few points on my 15-mile walks (usually after I’ve been walking into the wind for five miles) where I really start to get into this hazy, confused mental state and start to lose a bit of coordination as I’m walking. There’s also been a few times where I go into the public bathrooms at mile 7 and have to shiver uncontrollably for about 15 minutes before I finally warm up enough to continue. Fun times!
Beats four hours on a treadmill, though.
Woah
Guys, we were in the POSITIVE FAHRENHEITS today for like the first time in 20 years.*
It felt really good to be able to walk outside and not feel like I was going to die of hypothermia.
Seriously, I think this was the first actually enjoyable outside walk of this whole month. Does that mean spring is coming?!?!?!?!
(…please?)
*Mild exaggeration
OH MY GOD IT IS SO COLD
What in the actual frozen hell, Calgary.
Yes, this was at 5 AM, but it really never got much warmer than this today, let me tell you.
It was NEGATIVE THIRTY-EIGHT DEGREES when I walked to Anytime Fitness a little bit after this. If I had been walking into the wind instead of it blowing at my back, I would have easily gotten frostbite. That’s a 30-ish minute walk.
This weather is gross, yo. The only thing about being forced to go to Anytime Fitness is the fact that I have finally found the courage to try running again, and it feels so freaking awesome.
Now I just have to try to not go from 5k to, you know, like 13k in a day. I’m going to try to stay in the 5k range for a little while just to be safe, then slowly increase it.
But you know that as soon as the weather gets better outside, I’ll abandon Anytime Fitness altogether and just go back to my 15-mile outdoor walks, meaning running might cease again.
‘Cause that’s how I roll.
THE COLD, IT BURNS
There are few things quite like the sweet, sweet pain of losing all feeling in your toes, fingers, lips, and nose while you’re out walking for four hours in weather that’s way too cold. But hey, -15 feels tropical compared to that -30s nonsense we’ve had for the past few days, so I took leave of whatever modicum of common sense I have this morning and braved the cold for an outside walk.
It hurt. It hurt good.
(Except for those 10 minutes I spent shivering uncontrollably in the bathroom by the side of the path which subsequently and unexpectedly turned into a panic attack? That wasn’t very fun. But when I was done with that nonsense, the sun had come out, so the rest of the walk was fine.)
Edit: ha, my Garmin picked up the panic attack. Heart rate spike around 1 hour 40 minutes or so.
Brrr
My cold weather endurance is garbage right now. The temperature on my walk this afternoon ranged from 14 to 3 and I felt so freaking cold.
I need to get back into winter mode. The negative Fahrenheits are coming, yo.
Anyway.
Edit: hahahaha, FEBRUARY 2019 IS COMING
“Cold Weather Conditioning”
That’s what I’m going to start calling my winter walks, because holy balls it’s been cold out there.
But you know what? You get used to it. When you spend 4+ hours out in nonsense temperatures (negative Fahrenheits) you do adapt.
Ha, I remember when I thought 1℉ was obscenely cold. Now that’s a completely tolerable and relatively warm walking temperature!
My limit seems to be -22℉. That’s when the frostbite starts. Though I guess I was only out in that for about 45 minutes, so I suspect that slightly warmer temperatures are just as bad if I’m out in them for longer.
I GUESS WE’LL HAVE TO FIND OUT!
(You should all know by now that I have zero common sense.)
Albrrrta
Why
THE SHIT
Is it so cold again?
We’re 11 days away from spring and it’s -17 out there.
Canada, I am disappoint.
Weather, u ok?
YEAH THIS LOOKS ENJOYABLE
And yes, that’s Fahrenheit, not Celsius.
Okay, weather, I get it. You want to be cold. But you’ve consistently been in the -20s with wind chill for the past week. A bit of warmth would be great.
And by “warmth” I mean “temperatures that don’t cause frostbite within 10 minutes.”
Eigenblogger 