Back when I was a man, instead of whatever it is I am now, winter was just another season, albeit one that required more clothing. I’d kit up like the Michelin Man and go out for a road ride, or maybe a mountain-bike jaunt. If the weather was truly foul, I’d settle for a quick hour of cyclo-cross. Got to keep that edge, I’d think. Racing season is just around the corner.
But I quit racing several years ago, and these days I find less joy in a frozen, slushy outing that ends in a bike wash followed by laundry detail. I’d ski or snowshoe, if we had any snow, but unlike the San Juan Mountains the Front Strange is woefully light on precipitation. And my idea of a good time is decidedly not sharing the highways with a few jillion of my closest friends en route to a ski weekend in the mountains. These silly sods can’t even drive properly on dry roads.
So I run. It’s shameful, I know, but it’s also simple. Pull on the tights, long sleeves, cap, gloves and shoes, and off you go (with a courtesy call to the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden to let them know that Godzilla is on the loose again).
Mad Blog Media 
I’ve tried to get into running and never have been able too. Even when I was racing cross I could rarely drag myself out to run. Instead I’d just suffer the pain from running on race day. But I’m fine with hiking so the Incline is my choice for winter fitness. I just haven’t been able to find the fitness though.
Hey, Rob,
I used to loathe running. When I was swimming in high school, we still had to run track in PE and it made me nuts, because swimming doesn’t exactly turn you into a track star. When I became a great fat bastard many years later, I tried jogging (like everyone else), but quickly bought a bicycle because — huh? — running sucked.
Casual cycling turned into multisport and then bicycle racing and finally … cyclo-cross. That was my downfall. It hurt so much to add running into the program every fall that I took to running year-round. And here I am, in my mid-50s, stolidly slapping one foot in front of the other and repeating as necessary to keep my ass from absorbing the rest of my body a la The Blob.
Running requires kicking pain’s ass, knowing where the wall pain lives behind, and getting through that wall. It took me until my early 30’s to learn this, then I could really run. Now I need a knee replacement, so pain has kicked my ass via the meniscus tears and general arthritis. Biking doesn’t bother it for some strange reason, but the left quad has shrunk a bit. Sucks getting old and fat.
I never ran further than two miles in my life, until the summer that my brother died, folks split up, I was drinking too much, and about 86 other minor-ly traumatic events. Next thing I knew, I was doing marathons. So that’s the key: you need something to run FROM. Personal demons are more powerful than an armed thug at the door.
The problem with my little theory about running as a coping mechanism, though, is that I know very few long distance runners whom I’d nominate for the Most Well Adjusted Oscar in Life’s Academy Awards, with yours truly at least making the podium in that regard.
scratch that last line…meant, yours truly a DNF in that race.
I don’t run unless there is a 12 ft tall monster chasing me, and nine times out of ten I throw down rather than run. I’m 2-1 in throwdowns against multiton monsters, the one loss was when I had to get off my bike first…
Opus
Aw,
Running isn’t all that bad. As Richard Pryor once noted, if someone pulls a knife on you and all you can pull on him is a hand full of skin, it’s wise to have some miles in your legs. Running mostly sucks, true, but so does a live organ transplant from someone who is not a professionally trained surgeon, or even a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Still, that said, I’d rather ride the bike, as long as I don’t have to kit up like Bob Peary in search of the North Pole.
Man oh Man O’Grady, were you hanging out in the bushes while I was trying to do some semblance of ‘cross yesterday afternoon? That drawing is way, way too close to home. Except I was sans OGWGFIWRT jersey….