What was I thinking?!?!

Tonight I entered over into the dark side of insanity and I even took an innocent by standard with me. Before I go into that let me back up a bit to the end of summer.
At the end of August I was in a euphoric state after running my first ever 10km race. I didn't want the fun to stop and so I went on a search for the next run to register for. Well, on a warm August day I decided that running a 5km race on New Years Day would be tons of fun which begs the question.........What was I thinking?!?! (I even managed to convince a handful of people to register for it too)
I have been running ever since the big race but nothing like the intense training I was doing leading up to it. I ran into a HUGE snag when my dear sister in law and running partner moved away. Suddenly the evenings became dark by 5pm and then two days ago the snow began to fly.
A few weeks ago I met this fantastic girl at church that just moved into my neighborhood and so on the off chance I asked if she might like to run with me.....and she said yes! (Although she has only run indoors up until this point).
This brings me back to the insanity of tonight.
With the windchill hovering at a balmy -21 C I strapped on my new running grips complete with spikes, bundled up and headed out for the first run with my new "Friend" (she may not be my friend after tonight).

We headed out on a nice 2km run just to ease into it. As we finished the first few blocks I was thinking to myself that this was actually pretty nice and enjoyable. Beautiful snow falling and not another soul around. The wind picked up here and there as we ran.

AND then we headed east on the final stretch and ran right smack into the full force of that wind chill and could barely run. Painful.
When we got back to my place I bid my new friend farewell and began the process of thawing out my fingers. I am guessing that my new friend is at her house right now recounting the tale of her first encounter with my crazy self and is in the process of deleting me from her Facebook friend list.
Can't wait for the next winter run in a few days! (Despite the cold temps I still have to admit that I love literally running away from my kids even for a few minutes :)