Somewhere in Maine

I was back to work at my regular job this week, so that meant my usual lunch break xc ski down the Mountain Division Trail for a quick 2 miles. I must look ridiculous since I'm always dressed in my work clothes. No time to change, and I barely make it back on time as it is. I'm usually clocking back in right on the dot. The weather was still on the warm side and SUNNY.
Fast forward to 6 hours later when I was back at the Mountain Division Trail in the dark, temperature at 1 degree, wind blowing. After checking out the conditions at lunch, I knew I would only need microspikes for this run, and that was mostly true. It was pretty solid for a snowmobile trail, but still just a bit on the soft side. I decided to do an out-and-back and veer off onto a snowmobile trail for awhile, so I spent 2.5 miles running down this snowmobile trail having no idea where I was. All I could see were insanely bright Venus and Mars right next to each other in the sky up ahead of me almost the whole way... even after I turned around. So I knew that I must have been headed in some sort of loop back the direction I came. I wanted to take out my phone to see where I was so that maybe I could change my out-and-back into a loop, but by that point, I was FROZEN. Taking off my mitten would have been torture for my hands, so I just decided to turn around at mile 4, which left me with the wind in my face the whole way back. I felt like my eyes and cheeks were freezing, literally. Towards the end, I started to think that I was running on autopilot since I wasn't really feeling it. Then I realized that I wasn't really feeling it because my entire body was numb. Ha ha. I finished up 8 miles at a slowish pace of 8:08/mile, but considering the conditions, that wasn't that bad. I was running pretty hard, so I felt like the effort was there. I got right in my car and, as usual, never warmed up until I was home and in the shower. I almost used all of the hot water just to thaw out. I am so ready for some warmer temps.