What?

162 words
Somewhat chilly today.  I love it that I can wear my favorite outfit of shorts, t-shirt, and my purple fleece gloves.  I can’t overstate the joy I feel emerging from the fact that I can sprint without hesitation.  A memorable reader my recall that the sprint time above is one of the fastest.

inexpensive by half

436 words
A nice run in great weather.  The high today is supposed to be 14 or something.  I see on the internet that Iowa is below zero F, a dozen or so degrees COLDER than Moscow.  Well done!
I couldn’t start off with pull-ups on the school playground because since I was here last, half the playground has collapsed because they are building a road immediately beside the school.

slipping

70 words
This was the slowest time for the mid-run sprint.  Snow was falling and the surface was too cold to melt the snow (the last time it was snowing, the surface melted the snow because there must be some kind of heating source underneath).

Rude?

2561 words

The most telling thing about the cold here is that no one talks about it.  It just is.

Russian storekeepers have a well-deserved reputation for being rude.  If a person doesn’t know exactly the right question to ask, or they don’t know what they want, they might be castigated to the seventh gate of hell.  Yesterday, by coincidence, I experienced several tests of this reputation.  I came away with a mixed impression.

frosty the snowman

163 words, 1 pic;
I’ve found a new way to tell me that I need to do a better job shaving.  When I run with the temp at -25, frost gathers on my facial hairs. (I can’t call them whiskers because I still have mostly baby face fuzz).  After about 5 minutes today, I began to see specks of white popping up below my eyes.

COLD; greatest hits

414 words; 3 pics and 3 videos
A superb run today.  I ran with my flat mate, Ira.  I went to a store Thursday and nearly bought some mittens/gloves, something so that I can keep my fingers from freezing solid.  As I walked through the store, I realized that I want to look in the second hand store.

the snow miser is coming

71 words
Yes, it’s even colder.  Today, I took my fingers out of my two-layers of gloves and made fists.  This kept them from freezing solid.  The coldness seems to make me want to run faster—like I am running FROM something; maybe from the menacing snow miser.

coldest

22 words
The coldest so far, but nothing dangerous.  One thing I love is running by all the cars stuck in a traffic jam.

Non-hormonal Emergency Contraception

ANOTHER RECORD! at 1°F

370 words; 3 pictures
A NEW RECORD!!  I was totally surprised.  I consciously recognized the fact that I slowed down the last three steps—probably costing me a couple tenths of a second.  I wore two layers of gloves—one a thin, black, cotton pair; on the outside, my purple fleece gloves.  My hands were definitely the coldest part of the body—ears were cold, too.

he's a fruit

I figured that I’d meet many new things in Russia, but I didn’t think I would meet a new type of fruit.  My flat mate brought this thing home and I said, “What the heck is that?”

frozen hands

142 words; 1 picture
The coldest day so far.  My hands were truly stinging and frozen.  I think I will have to get some leather gloves or something.  The leather mittens I used to wear on the farm would probably do nicely.  My hands were so cold that they pull-ups were totally uncomfortable; I didn’t do many.

WHAM!! like a cartoon character

431 words; several pics
Walking back from my lesson this morning at 9:15, I slipped right down.  It was unlike any slippage I’ve experienced before—one second, walking normally,

melting and freezing

110 words
The median in the middle of Rokossovskovo, where I do my mid-run sprint has quite a bit of ice on it.  The problem is that some of the snow/ice melts during the day but it doesn’t dry.  It freezes overnight and when I run in the morning, it’s slick.

toilet--again?!?

477 words; pic
A fine run today—esp. good because I ran with a friend.  The results of the sprint were excellent, particularly when one considers that I had to skirt around a bunch of people…and the fact that I wasn’t really in the clear until the last 50 meters or so; the pavement was covered with little puddles and patches of ice.

snow and ice, new visa

482 words
Another new record!!!  I was shocked, well…amazed, when I returned to my room, and looked at my watch. I wasn’t shocked because as I wrote a couple days ago, the body is truly amazing.  While I was running, I didn’t even think I was running that quickly.

Lady Antebellum

135 words, 2:45 music clip
An easy run to the old sprint route on Rokossovskovo.  Great music from Lady Antebellum in my ears.  The only detraction was the ice and snow on the sidewalk.  I have completely eliminated 1-minute sprints from the regime because of patches of ice popping up unexpectedly.

stinging fingers

150 words
Yes, my finger tips were stinging today, so I estimate the temp. was significantly below zero.  The temperature is only an estimate because we don’t have internet here, yet.  After 13 minutes, I was back at the Podbelskovo Metro station, so I truly did not move far away from my first apartment/room.

New Apartment--Leg ups

248 words, one picture
My first run from the new apartment.  I arrived at Bolshoi Cherkizovsky at exactly the right moment to cross a 6-lane street in the middle of a green light.  That’s my new street address: Bolshoi Cherkizovsky—some reading this might recognize Bolshoi as the name of the famous dance theater in Moscow.