Friday, January 16, 2009

NINJA WARRIOR

I admit that yesterday’s -40 degree windchill scared me off. I crawled back into bed after seeing that. I was “rewarded” with an hour commute – double what it would have been if I had gotten up to run. Once at work, Eric emailed me a photo of him after his run – standing next to the thermometer that read -20. Of course, that made me feel guilty

This morning it was just as cold, but the windchill wasn’t as bad. I dressed similar to my last post – I just added another long sleeve shirt and ditched the feet warmers. It is really amazing how much heat your body can put out as I felt comfortable – albeit slow – the whole time.

These aren’t the conditions where you bump into a lot of people along the way. So I was a little startled when I came around a corner and saw 3 guys – at least I think they were guys – coming toward me. For a moment, I thought we were in some type of Enter the Dragon movie. We all had on dark clothes and all you could see were our eyes.

I managed an hour run that included 6 trips up the Bush Lake Road hill. I’m not sure if running hill repeats will help when it comes to the Birkie hills, but I figure it can’t hurt. Besides, the hill repeats take my mind off the weather.

Anyway, the warm-up has started. We should be above zero any minute now. Now, hopefully, everyone can stop pissing and moaning (and blogging) about the weather – including me.

Finally, here’s part 2 of the interview I conducted with Olympian Van Nelson.

Quote of the Day;

“First, we never missed a day. It didn’t matter if it was cold or raining. We just dressed appropriately, but we never missed a day. I ran two-a-days all the time.” - Van Nelson

3 comments:

Don said...

Oh I like this PLUS 20 degree weather so much better!

Nice article in RunMinnesota.

Chad said...

Thanks Don. I'm glad you like the article. And I think everyone likes +20 better than -20.

Formulaic said...

I liked the analogy!

It's awesome that you guys get out there in the sub zero weather.

Very inspiring for me when I want to wimp out.