Arctic Insanity

It's not just cyclist and runners who are going off their gourds in this rarely-precedented spate of low temperatures and seemingly unending snow.

The folks at NOAA, not typically given to hyperbole, had this to say earlier today in their forecast discussion:

NORTHERN HEMISPHERIC TELECONNECTIONS STEMMING FROM PERSISTENT NEGATIVE HEIGHT ANOMALIES IN THE GULF OF ALASKA AND NORTH ATLANTIC SEABOARD...COUPLED WITH BUILDING HEIGHTS ALONG THE WEST COAST...SPELL NOTHING SHORT OF ARCTIC INSANITY OVER THE NEXT WEEK.

Yeah. Let's talk insanity. (And I don't mean the hat . . .)


Forty or so runners (and six dogs) showed up for the Kansas City Track Club New Year's Day run. The roads were clear of snow, and at ten degrees, the weather was twice as warm as my coldest run. So no big deal.

Should be a great day, I thought, to finally meet the KCTC folks — any idiot out in their Mizunos on a day like this must really either love to run or love the company.

I should have understood what I was in for when the starter announced that the bike path heading west was cleared off more than the path heading east, but that the path east had the mile markers, so pick your poison.

The full impact of this statement hit home when the pack of us launched ourselves over the ice berm that separated the perfectly good clear road from the bike path trailhead. The bike path beckoned, sparkling white in the mid-morning sun.

I made it two and a half lonesome miles (not a lot of chat when you're all watching footing) in the icy snow before realizing I was undoing all the fine chiropractic work that had loosened my post-car crash, seized-up SI joint two days earlier. With lower back gently radiating punishment, I waved goodbye to the runners behind me and hopped off the trail into the Corporate Woods office park, thinking to make my way back on lightly trafficked roads.

I picked a route with a big juicy hill (which as it turns out borders a spectacular sledding hill) rather than the secondaries with no clear sidewalks. However, I didn't remember that from the bottom of the hill, the only way to get back to the run start was to dash upstream — on the road itself, no shoulder or sidewalk — on a divided six-lane, crossing both the interstate off- and on-ramps.

Nothing like laughing at death to ring in the new year. At least I had followed my credo for trail run fashion: "Be visible and memorable." Which is not a half-bad recipe generally for having fun.

Anyway, I only had to leap once into the exhaust-blackened cliff of snow at roadside. And when I made it uphill to the run start, tables of doughnuts, thick bagels and flavored cream cheese, hot cocoa, and cider were waiting amidst a lot of laughing runners all saying to each other, "Where did you end up? How far did you run?"

I didn't get to meet many people. Most were in tight knots of friends catching up with one another. But I did see that these look like great people to run with. I mean, who wouldn't want to know people who can keep their moods this high in the bone-chilling temps?

So, see you at a potluck run, KCTC. And um, NOAA guys? If you tell me how to do it I will send you some Zingerman's and some hot cocoa. Sounds like you could use a lift.