Pennsylvanians have lost their edge. We were spoiled for two or three years with crazy mild winters that had everyone screaming "Climate change!" or "Gore was right!". When you hear the latter, you know people have begun to go insane.
I can remember going to school on mornings that the car thermometer (we were lower-upper-middle class) read 0* because I don't think it could read into the negatives. When we got to school, the furnace didn't work so we had to wear our coats to class. Although the cold kept us awake, I think it made us all a little more surly too.
Now we're touching down close to where temps were in the good ole days, topping out at a balmy 12* today, and you'd think we were moving into the new ice age. Kids are off school or on delay!
Bull. Malarkey.
I'm not tooting my own horn here, but I laced on my Salomon Speedcross for extra traction, threw on a face mask, 37 pairs of gloves and headed out. It was -15* with the wind, or so the news said. The route I took is my original long-run hill course, a 4 mile out 'n back on Dry Run Road. It's fairly downhill on the way out and has you running down the hollow headed east, or with the jet streams. (Isn't it funny looking back at how difficult your original running routes were when you started out?) I had on my hunting face mask and the only skin open to the wind was a little mask around my eyes. It was great headed out! I was fairly warm, especially my face. The use of the fleece and lycra face mask was an obvious testament to my running experience and prowess.
Always remember, what goes down the hollow, and doesn't continue onto the loop, must come back the hollow. The wind is fierce coming off of Steel Mountain and funneling down through Dry Run hollow. It fought me the entire way back. It also didn't help that my awesome face mask was now restricting my oxygen intake as I sucked air coming back up the hills. I was uncomfortable, but I thought the extra difficulty would make up for the shorter distance. "Ah, this is good anaerobic training! I'll have to do this more often to get ready for trail racing!" Until I got back onto Valley Forge Rd and had to make the climb. About a quarter of the way up I was getting almost no air and yanked the mask down around my neck.
I knew I was building up moisture from my breath inside the mask, and I knew taking it off was a poor idea, but I did it. Immediately, and I mean within about 4 seconds of pulling down the mask, my poor excuse for facial hair was frozen stiff. Fearing frostbite, I know it was maybe a little ridiculous, I pulled it back up and tried not to blackout as I trudged up the rest of the hill towards the end point.
Moral of this story: When it's this cold, cross train. That or use a buff, they're much more forgiving than your hunting mask.
That being said, we're heading out again at 5:30p. Want to join??
Second moral: It's not stupid if you can talk other people into going with you. Then it's fun!
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