Yesterday I exchanged the jacket I got for Christmas. Though the Pearl Izumi jacket was VERY cute, fit perfectly and was designed for cold weather, the wind blew right through it. (I took my husband to FrontRunner, tried on jackets and showed him the one I wanted.) The sales clerk assured me it would be wind resistant — it wasn’t.

Anyway, yesterday I returned it and found the exact jacket I wanted! It’s made by asics, is a great color I won’t get tired of (plum), is wind resistant and water resistant, and there are zippered vents at the shoulders. The sales clerk who waited on me this time said they sell out of this one quickly and the current shipment just came in. Yea! (It’s actually a weather-resistant shell that requires layers underneath, but that is my preference.)

I had the opportunity to try out my new jacket when Deb and I did our hill workout tonight. It was sunny, but probably only 30 degrees when we started at about 4:45. After just a couple of minutes we were warmed up, and after a couple hills, we were both very warm and sweating. As the temps dropped, the wet spots on the street at Griggs Reservoir started to freeze and it was tough to tell what was frozen and what was just wet. After we both slipped a couple times, we decided to call it a night. We ended up walking for about 47 min. and got back to our cars just as the sun was beginning to set behind the trees at 5:30.

Because one side of the hill still had snow and ice, we walked to the top of the hill, did a loop around the fountain at the top, and back to where we started. I lost track of the laps, but the uphills felt great! And we both had plenty of energy to go farther. It’s a shame the weather did not cooperate.
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Wore two technical shirts under jacket, which was a layer too much. It was great having vents at the shoulder. My MR peaked at 152, which is in the fourth zone. I still have to figure out how to determine how long I walked in each zone. Just saw that it is possible to add on something that will allow me to download info to my computer. I’m going to look into that.

Note: I hate jacket colors that can look too dated. A lot of what I saw at one store was teal and pink. I think after a year, teal will get old and I’m just not a pink person. I loved the red Pearl Izumi jacket and the plum color of the asics jacket is great!

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