OMG! It's Ol' Man Winter

I know this winter in Cincinnati has been a breeze compared to most, but I have to celebrate victories where I can get them, right? So, congratulations to myself-- I went up 2-0 on Ol’ Man Winter (OMW) this week (the coldest week yet) and I’m just getting started!

Rather than let myself get brutalized and victimized, as I normally would, by his sneaky, creaky, cold, dark, depressing ways, I decided to change my tactics from surviving to THRIVING.

Step 1- sign up for and win a polar swim (aka- attack the left testicle of OMW)

"Swimmers, take your mark..."

GO!

Holy holy!

Stay loose. It's not that bad.

Freezin' for a Reason: "Team Ice Men" helped to raise over $100,000 for Special Olympics this year. 

Step 2- Ride my bike to work no matter how cold it gets (aka—attack the right testicle of OMW). 

As cold as it was this week, I'm still over-heating most of my body parts, man-funking up the office with sweat. While my torso gets cooked, I'm nevertheless freezing a couple of vital body parts. Sure, these can be addressed with boring old gloves, headband, booties, and padded shorts but that's just what OMW wants you to do. And who has time to remember all those things and look for them when they inevitably get scattered around the basement?

For this reason, I've invented a new line of cold weather cycling gear that melds the highest functionality of some classic wardrobe staples (mitten clips, mankini, bib shorts, ear muffs, footie pajamas, and speed suit, into a single article that serves ALL winter cycling needs. I call it "The Chri-Smitten".

The Chri-Smitten

Step 3, as I’ve mentioned before, involves building toward a 6 mile barefoot run in the snow. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any accumulation this winter, so I’m stuck running the boring old fully-clothed way. Fully-clothed running is exactly what feeds OMW his arrogance and power and we all need to try to do as little of that as possible.

I’ve been ramping up mileage in my Vibrams, but the pavement is a mother on my Achilles tendons. So, I start out in my regular shoes, with my Vibrams stuffed in my Camelbak. At the first sign of inflammation in my toe, I swap my shoes and socks for the Vibrams and run with my shoes over my hands like mittens. (OMW hates clever non-traditional cold tolerance strategies like this).

The Brooks running shoes are great mitten-substitutes. The Camelbak holds my water, snacks, and Vibrams for emergencies.

My distance is maxed out at 6 miles but I’ve been doing speed work on the treadmill and that has blistered-up my dogs quite nice. Soon, I’ll have badass calluses growing all over my supple diva feet. If we get no accumulation this year, I promise to get my 6 mile barefoot run in before winter’s end. This would essentially smash OMW’s testicles together into one amorphous snowball.

Surviving winter, for me, has always entailed some essential coping mechanisms—all good and helpful in their own right, but pretty much the bare minimum to skate by between New Year’s and St. Patty’s Day. Here they are in order of their importance to me:

Carbs

I’ve always found that if my body felt cold then I was either under-dressed or under-carbed. I aim for about 5 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight daily—That’s about 3000 calories of carbs per day, unless I’m doing a lot of training, then I have to eat up to twice that. My preferred carbs are fruit, the second option-- potatoes, third best-- rice, and fourth best being pasta or breads. I notice my head gets cloudier at work as I move toward those fourth tier options, though.

Layers
I have no shame in wearing long johns under my work pants. If you saw me on the street, sometimes I'm so layered I look like I've got the body of a linebacker but with an inappropriately small head. Don't be fooled-- I just love to layer**. When I'm over-dressed, my runs actually happen. Setting up the conditions for an outdoor adventure is more important than actually getting outside.

**This may seem like a contradiction--feeding OMW's power, but actually that only applies to the outermost layer. If my outermost layer is just a spring jacket (and I have three layers beneath), that's far superior to one poofy winter jacket. You can always shed layers if you overheat. Plus, you can't run through the woods if you're dressed like the stay-puff marshmallow man.

Sun
Maybe it's the Vitamin D, maybe it's the ultra-wide spectrum of light stimulating the eyeballs, maybe it's the beauty of nature, maybe the connection to a wider solar system...The sun is freakin' sweet medicine for me!

St. John’s Wort

His is by far my favorite wort. Whoever St. John was as a person, I’m a proponent of his wort’s magical powers.  It’s not that SJW gets me high, or anything close, but it really smoothes out the divots. It’s like rollerblading on newly paved blacktop versus a crusty sidewalk. I haven’t felt the need to take it for the last two years, but it's not like I've joined 12-step program to get over it.

"GTHOOD"
If all else fails, you can always "get the hell out of dodge". A mid-winter trip to a warm, sunny beach might break the bank for most people, but a cold, mid-western tedium might break the person.

I went on a mission trip in the Bahamas one year, which wasn't that expensive (or plush) at all, but it carried physical and spiritual therapy for me. As I write this, I'm thinking how ridiculous it is that some version of this isn't one of my yearly traditions. I'll have to work on that. I'd love ideas, too, if you have them.