More Miles than Degrees

Last night I had the plan to do what's called in the industry "More Miles than Degrees". This is a running term, and as you may have guessed it involves running more miles than the temperature has degrees (F).

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Damn it's Cold

I posted the run with my normal (regular, but abnormal) crew and it was ill received. They offered to run some of it, but I was on my own for basically the second half.

We met up at someone's house for an easy hour-fifteen. With bullshitting, shoe-tying, headlamp adjusting and post-run bullshitting this turned into about 5 miles and change. We stood around for a bit afterward discussing runs for the rest of the week while my body temp returned to frozen solid.

At this point everyone returned to their respective cars with their heated seats and climate controlled driving cockpits, and I affixed my (soon-to-be-defunct) iPod to my hip and headed for home. They all looked on in disbelief as I trotted down the frigid road happily singing along to some Dave Matthews Band.

As you might imagine, people don't expect to see Lycra-clad dudes wearing headlamps to be running down the street. Armed with that knowledge I had to pay extra attention to traffic, while also paying extra attention to the ice on the shoulder of the road. A few times I was forced off the road in what became a fun game of mountain-goating over snow piles.

The snowpiles had thawed last weekend and then frozen extra solid this week. This made for enjoyable mountaineering when I needed to get out of the road. I would simply run up and over ten-foot high snowpiles like they were piles of rock. I even got a "Good looks, son" from a thug, and a honk-and-holler from a car full of hood-rat chicks.

Big ups to me!

Oh, in case you were wondering I did run more miles than degrees. WHAT!

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Well, I have to take off. The Thursday Night Run is in an hour and I have to feed the Hungry Hungry Kittens. Peace in the Northeast.

Over and Out,
Old Coot