One way to run while being super cool (by Rob Rayder

Running while being super cool

By Robert “the Lone Runner” Rayder

Today I will Do what others Won’t

So Tomorrow I can Accomplish what others Can’t.

—Jerry Rice

with a trip through the foolish. One such example in my world are my biannual “Tough Guy Runs.” The idea behind the Tough Guy runs is simple. If you voluntarily choose to run in the most challenging weather conditions possible, then whatever conditions

When you fancy yourself a long-distance runner, it you find on race day are better than what you have helps to be a little crazy – or maybe a lot crazy. already faced. It’s a huge psychological boost on a bad-

It has certainly paid off for me. The crazier my weather race day. ideas, the better I do. That nonsensical philosophy has Thus, annually I choose to run on the hottest and kept me running for almost a dozen years in a sport that coldest days my work schedule allows. Not only that my friends still insist is nothing but pure insanity. – I run at the hottest or coldest hours within that day.

It’s doubly insane when you look like me In other words, I run in the worst possible conditions physically, an overweight, balding, grey top that is the last person in the world you would expect to run I may be Mother Nature throws at me during any given year. Mother Nature, as you probably know, in distance races. I run with neither the grace of the gazelle nor the crazy, but can get downright ugly in Memphis. If all this sounds crazy, things are both splendor of the cheetah. Instead, I run more like a tank, a huge I’m not better and worse than you assume. On the “worse” side are the rules I physical presence that just keeps on going forward no matter what insane. impose on myself. A Tough Guy run must be at least one hour in duration. If there gets in my way. I don’t get there is a choice between a relatively more fast, but I get there, and I’m almost impossible to stop. comfortable path and a less comfortable path, I always

The key to this kind of running is developing choose the path of maximum suffering. That means no a mental fortitude that can withstand the pain, the shaded paths in summer, and no wind-sheltered trails in criticisms, and the uncertainties found in the sport, and the winter. I force myself to experience the worst and in the world at large. I take pleasure when someone most exposed pathway so that I can better appreciate tells me that I can’t do something or that something is even the smallest reprieve found on some future course. impossible “for a guy like you.” On the “better” side of this equation is the fact that

“For a guy like who?” I ask. “Am I too big, too old, I have no desire to die. I research and buy whatever too … whatever? How do you know?” I need to reduce the risks of what I’m doing. I have

After a moment like that I like to figure out a plan insulated and high-quality layers of clothing, Yaktrax to get it done, then I do it. Most of the time I find out ice grippers for my shoes, and thermal heat packs for that something labelled “impossible for a guy like my gloves and pockets to better conquer the winter. you” isn’t so much a matter of can’t, but rather it’s a In summer I have an aid station set up at my house matter of won’t. Sometimes it takes a lot, but almost stocked with a cooler filled with ice water, electrolytes, always such challenges can be met if you’re willing to drinks and towels to soak and carry with me as I run. pay the price. The cost might be expensive, but it’s not Preparation is the key to safety, and I definitely spend a impossible. If you look hard enough you will invariably lot of time on preparation. find someone who is just like you who has done it I may be crazy, but I’m not insane. before. All you have to do is find your own path. This winter, however, Mother Nature offered some

The path to the impossible almost always starts unique winter-time options to put a new spin on my

old Tough Guy routine.

You see my old nemesis, the polar vortex, was coming back to Memphis after a multi-year absence.

In case you have somehow avoided winter, or live in a dark cave or something, I’ll explain what the polar vortex is. Every so often, cold air gets pushed out of the arctic and sent spiraling south into more temperate zones of the globe. While the North Pole enjoys a much-needed break from the ice box Snow was more than ankle deep in most places. conditions that are usually found there, places like Memphis get thrust into a super deep freeze. Temperatures plummet and we Southerners get reminded of why we chose not to live anywhere near the arctic in February.

This year the vortex was going to be an especially Stage two: The Cold fine treat, as Gulf moisture was moving north at the A polar vortex is like a Mack Truck. Once it gets same moment the vortex was spreading south. An epic rolling, there is no way to stop it. As the vortex plunges collision was destined to occur between two of nature’s Southward, warm air is ruthlessly cast aside, and a most powerful titans in the frozen, cloudy skies above path of frigid air is left in its wake. Records fall, pipes Memphis. freeze, skin turns numb, and the temperatures outside

The battle of wills between the cold, dry air of the make a household freezer look like a tropical hotspot. Great White North and the familiar warm, wet air from And in the middle of that path, the vortex lingers, the tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea was to unfold making the deep freeze a trial of many days before in three distinct wintery stages. the world finally rights itself and temperatures slowly return to just plain, run of the mill, winter cold.

Stage one: The Ice

Memphis is famous for a lot of things. One of them we could all do without is the ferocious ice storms that plague us every few years. Supercooled raindrops fall from the sky and instantly freeze on whatever they contact on the ground. The result is a covering of pure ice that coats everything in sight, like trees, cars, bridges, streets and walkways. Although beautiful, this ice field leaves devastation in its wake. Tree limbs snap, falling on cars, houses, and people alike. Cars skid uncontrollably on streets so recently turned into demonic ice rinks, and bridges collapse under the strain of all that added weight from freshly deposited layer upon layer of ice.

Stage three: The Snow

Tropical moisture is no slouch either. The vortex may sap it of its famed heat, but the humidity lives on and all that moist air precipitates and falls to earth in a magical way, as ice crystals. In other words, it snows. The world is covered in a fluffy coat of white. Streets are buried, snowmen are born and sleds make rare appearances outside of dark garages. For many of us in the South, snow is so rare that it seems like we are transported to a whole new world when it makes an