Running Through the Canadian Winter...

Last week, I found myself at a cocktail party.

Surrounded by a lot of people I don't know.

I usually hate this type of thing, but I was enticed by free alcohol. And there were canapes of some sort.

Since the people that had invited me to the event spent most of the evening making the rounds and mingling with people they knew, I found myself in a lot of conversations with strangers.

I hate cocktail party small-talk. Either I have nothing to talk about, or I latch onto a subject and go on about it incessantly, ending up sounding like a blithering idiot. I also hate not being open, not being myself when I'm conversing with people. I really have to rein that in when I'm with people who don't know me. My crazy idiosyncrasies are endearing to my friends and family (so I've been told -- though, I'm sometimes inclined to believe they're all filthy liars) but when it's not friends or family, crazy idiosyncrasies just make me look... well... crazy

About two drinks into the evening, I found myself in conversation with a young woman, and we found ourselves talking about what we both did to keep in shape. I mentioned that the majority of time workout time was spent running -- that, in fact, I'd gone for a 5K run earlier that day.

She seemed incredulous.

"But it was negative-five and snowing!"

"Yeah."

"Why? Why would you run outside?"

Since the conversation started by establishing what we did to keep in shape, I figured that any answer approximating, "To keep myself in shape," would sound stupid. Starting a rant about my hatred of treadmills would have gone straight into blithering idiot territory. So, with all of that in mind, I said the only thing that came to mind.

"Just because."

I know. Smooth. Thank God I didn't find her particularly attractive, otherwise just thinking about this incident would be turning me into a quivering, neurotic mess right now.

Not surprisingly, the conversation ended right there. She went looking for a drink refill. I moved on to a slightly less insipid conversation with another total stranger.

See, here's the gist of what I would have said, had I been in open, full-blithering-idiot mode:

Firstly, I do it to keep in shape. I like to eat, so in order not to be fat, I need to burn off a crap-load of calories. I can't stand running on a treadmill. I need landscape passing me by. I need landmarks. I need some sense that I'm actually going somewhere. Even if I could stand running on a machine, anything longer than a thirty-minute run on one is against the policy of any gym that has treadmills. Swimming laps at my local pool more than once or twice a week is similarly mind-numbing.

Secondly, I'd rather be cycling but:

1. I have a road bike with racing tires that requires that road be relatively free of snow when I ride.
   
2. It's still dark when I get off work on weekdays.
3. Snowbanks tend to leave less room on the roads during the winter.
4. Drivers in Toronto during the winter are either crazy, incompetent, or both.
   

Regardless, not being able to cycle doesn't really explain why I'm running outside during the winter. The people that think that running at -5°C is crazy would think that cycling in those temperatures is just as nuts.

Thirdly, I'm already signed up for two races in the spring (a 5K in early April, and a 10K in May), so taking the entire winter off from running just won't work. (Yeah, that's still crazy.)

Lastly, I run outside when most other people think it's freezing too cold because, at some fundamental level, I'm an attention whore. That's right: I'm an attention whore. There's something about me that relishes the fact that when I'm running in cold weather, dressed only in shorts and two thin top-layers (see my Cold Weather Running Matrix), huffing and puffing and sweating up a storm; people outside walking around dressed up like Michelin Men look at me like I'm a complete freak. I like the stares. I like the incredulity. I like the fact that I'm out there demonstrating, in some small way, that I'm just plain TOUGHER than you weirdos staring at me. (And that's where I go completely bat-shit insane crazy.)

But, obviously, I couldn't say all of that to a complete stranger at a cocktail party.

Cocktail parties: Either I'm boring, or a complete whack job.

Tough call to make.

(Postscript on January 11th, 2008:)

I remembered two more reasons in run outside during the winter; the reasons coming to me during and after my run this morning (in -13°C temperatures and over a lot of sidewalks covered in a 4-5cm of overnight snowfall).

Runner's High:

I've never gotten it from running on a treadmill. It either takes an extraordinary, close to record-pace effort over 5K, or a run of 8K or longer before I feel it -- neither of which I can do on a treadmill. Yeah, endorphin rushes are kind of addicting.

The Cool-Down:

After a good run during the winter, it's nice when the cool-down walk achieves its literal goal, rather than just lowering the heart-rate. In sub-freezing temperatures, a five to ten-minute walk after a run actually cools me down. I'm not sure the significance of this advantage can be appreciated unless one has run in the summer and found oneself still sweating forty-five minutes after a run -- a forty-five minutes that included a fifteen minute cool-down walk, and a ten-minute cold shower. My on-board heat-sinks really stink.

Even during the winter, I run the risk of over-heating. Last winter, during a run in -10°C temperatures, I overdressed. The plan was to run, with Rob, about 7K from my place down to a diner, cool-down, then have brunch. Problem was, even after a fifteen-minute cool-down walk, I was still sweating up a storm. Thank God there was a wait for a table, otherwise I would have been dripping all over my breakfast. I was so hot I couldn't wait indoors; while Rob stood in line, I was outside in the cold, stripped right down to a UnderArmour shirt on top, literally steaming water vapour out of my pores, flapping my arms in order to dissipate heat as quickly as possible. I got a lot of stares. The best reaction was from that one guy, bundled up like he Michelin Man, wearing a balaclava, with a thick woolen hat on top, and a heavy scarf wrapped up past his nose. He stared at me for fifty metres, coming down the street towards me. All he said was, "Dude."

God, that was awesome. (See the 'Attention Whore' justification above.)