It’s about to be pretty frigid in North Texas (where I’m from)…and it’s not something that we are really used to.
I can’t even begin to imagine training in December, January, and February in places such as Michigan or Minnesota…but over these next few days of pretty bad weather, we still have to train, right? OF COURSE.
Now, I know you’ve all heard the quote from Bill Bowerman:
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.”
But there’s another story that inspires me just a bit more…
One dark, midwinter evening in early 1971, Steve Prefontaine and Frank Shorter were on a 10-mile training run high in the mountains outside of Taos, New Mexico.
It was cold – the bitter, goes-right-through-you-like-a-knife kind of cold that often descends on the Rockies like a sheet of ice after the sun goes down.
There was no spandex back then, no lycra, no polypropylene tights, no shoes with air or gel in the soles, no heart rate monitors or digital watches. Those who have run in such conditions know that the winter wind bites right through those flimsy, antidiluvian nylon tops we used to wear…You can’t see because the sleet and snow are blowing directly into your face, crusting up and freezing your eyelids and turning you into a snowman…
It was Shorter and Prefontaine’s second run of the day…The two runners were freezing, tired, and cranky.
“Frank, this is crazy. Let’s head back, light a fire, and have some dinner,” Prefontaine said through the ice hanging from his mustache and eyebrows.
Shorter looked over at his friend, squinted into the blinding snow, and said, “Steve, no one is training as hard as we are right now. No one!”
I’m not Pre or Frank, but I can definitely relate to that feeling of being out on a rough day and thinking, “No one is training as hard as I am right now. No one!”
Enjoy your runs over these next few bad-weather days.
Phillips Running 