I do not like winter. I grew up in the desert where winter lasted two months and the temperature rarely went below 30 degrees. Give me 110 degree weather any day!

Shortly after I started running again I had signed up for the Joe Kleinerman 10k in Central Park, my first winter race. It was fucking cold and I remember joking with a friend that we had to choose an outdoor sport instead of something indoors with heat.

Until this year, my winter running has been limited. Sure I run in plenty of races and ran every weekend with maybe a run in the evening. They were limited and never very far. Even last year when I was training for the Miami Half Marathon I didn’t run that much and mostly focused on my weekend long run.

Because of this I never focused too much on buying a lot winter running gear. I had enough to get me through the weekend. If I wanted to run more, I quickly found that I didn’t have any clean running tights. Like that Progressive Insurance commercial, I was often left standing there saying, “No mas pantalones.” This meant no running.

But now that I am up at 5:00 am four days a week to go running I had to remedy the pantalones situation. Sorry, I just cannot re-wear my running tights for multiple days in a row. I just can’t.

Roughly around this time, I was gifted two pairs of running tights and gifted a pair of the wrong size to someone else. We’ll refer to that as The Great Pantalones Exchange after the God’s Love We Deliver race. Then game Black Friday. While others were battling the crowds to Christmas deals I was all comfy on my warm sofa buying running tights for 70 percent off. Yup I bought two pairs for a total of 40 bucks. They have quickly become my favorite tights.

I also bought a few winter running pull-overs that have made me very happy. While the running tights are black I do have to ask why women’s running clothes always have to be pink or purple and look so damn feminine? But that’s a post for another day.

Right now, all I know is that I have mucho pantalones to try my best to enjoy this winter weather.