Thursday, January 7, 2010

A little extreme training

Special D - a.k.a. big boss man of the Mark Twain N.F. made me drag my sorry rear out of bed go to work today in light of the BLIZZARD conditions. OK, maybe just a cold wintry snow shower, but the kids were off school and since I didn't feel like going to work I thought I would "stick it to the man" and run to work in protest. So I donned some tights and wind pants on bottom, base layer, fleece and windbreaker up top, facemask, hat, gloves and woolly socks and headed out.

It was 7 degrees with winds steady at 20 mph and gusting 26 which made the wind chill a balmy -14 degrees. I have to say with temps and especially with wind that cold it soon becomes apparent where you are insulation deficient. I could feel the cold seeping though to my legs at the start of the run (3-4 miles) but I hoped that they would warm up once I started generating some body heat. As I rounded the corner and headed up Soest road by the middle school the wind just absolutely blasted me. With snow blowing all around, the wind blasting me in the face and trudging through the snow, I felt I was starring in some journey across Antarctica documentary. It was excellent!

As I was running up Pine St. to RMU I began to have a small problem. You see, my legs, by that time had begun generating heat and felt fine along with the rest of me except for one little thing...The Captain had began to get a bit of a shiver in the timbers. That's right, I had failed properly shield Captain Winkey from the Arctic conditions and he was starting to protest. In fact he was down right causing me pain. When I got to RMU and was standing there paying my utilities I found that if I held myself it felt quite a bit warmer. So I just said to heck with it and while I was waiting for my payment to be processed I stood there in front of a bunch of old ladies, with face mask, hat and sunglasses looking like I was ready to go on a covert-op, holding myself like a 1st grader who is destined to forever be known as Scotty Potty.

I headed back out feeling a bit relieved, crossed the golf course, made snow angels on one of the greens and in front of the office then went in to stick it to "the man." Who of course could have cared less about my protest and probably wished he came with me. I didn't really do it to protest, just wanted to have a go at it cause doing stuff like that makes me feel alive.

Is there such a thing as a Willy Warmer or am I going to have to put that to Forum Dental Adventure Racings R&D department?