Mother Nature isn't finished with me yet. If last year you froze at Columbia, slopped at Eagleman, drowned at Lake Placid, or melted at Boston with me, don't even bother assuming that because the calendar has turned a page that Mother Nature is finished trying to kill me. Maybe she wants me to be a Marine; maybe she wants me to gain the confidence to race in all weather; maybe she just likes grey.

Regardless - lets begin at the beginning. The alarm went off to fling me towards my first race of 2004. 5:30am. It's dark. As usual I crashed across the room, tripped over the backpack I'd laid out the night before, and put my contact lenses in the wrong eyeballs. I crossed my eyes for a bit, reversed the lenses, and looked at myself in the mirror; I looked as awake as Eeyore on a sunny day. The cold rain pattering against the window outside whispered to me, "It's cold, wet, slippery, and nasty out here. Welcome back, Bob!"

Strangely, I didn't really care. There was no whining, moping, fretting, or stressing. There was none of the usual, "Why me?" histrionics that came every week in 2003: It was raining. It had snowed. The roads were under 2" of slush. It was 32 degrees. Big, fat, hairy deal. I was running - I was going to get this race in. I'd be wet, I'd be cold, but since I was going to wear my entire closet of winter gear, why worry about it? I didn't have to be fast, it wasn't 26.2 miles (only 10), and I wouldn't have to ride. Luxury!

The drive to the race start was foggy, wet, misty, cold, damp, and creepy. It was the kind of weather that Edgar Allen Poe would have loved - perfectly gloomy. I parked, and had to chuckle that nothing else in downtown Wilmington showed any life with the exception of the 11th street YMCA, which resembled an ant hill for the lycra-parka-toque-headband-earmuff-wearing crowd. A steady stream of steely (bleary) eyed runners made their way in through the doors, and to the relative comfort of a warm, dry gym for registration.

I picked up my number - 200. Nice. A good round number, just like me. "Sweet! When did we start racing in weight class?" I asked. The volunteers laughed: The anorexic runners within earshot didn't. I smiled. I wasn't nervous, but they all had fear. Why did they fear? Because they knew the truth: If you send 400 people out into a slush-filled, freezing-rain kind of day, and 399 of them have less then 5% body fat, guess who has the best chance of making it back without hypothermia? Darwin tipped his cap my way, and I strolled out past the unblinking skinnies and got ready to run.

In the lobby the entire field gathered en masse to wait for the 9:00am start (which would be right out the doors). It's worth noting that the lobby is 20 feet by 15 feet, which made us look like one of those Discovery Channel specials on the Emperor Penguins that live in Antarctica, and survive by huddling in a tight circle for 6 months at a time. Then again, since I was the only non-anorexic who came to run on such an ugly day, how much space could they have taken up, really?

At 8:59 and 50 seconds someone cracked from the tension and opened the doors, and there was much grumbling. Thermodynamics being what they are, the heat immediately wooshed out the front door, and it started snowing in the lobby. Facing the first "Frying Pan or Fire?" choice of a season, we moved out as one unit in tight formation, and huddled outside and waited for the starting gun. It was still raining; it had snowed overnight but warmed up, so we were standing in ankle-deep slush. A bank thermometer nearby flashed up "33°." Not 32, not 40, but 33. Ack.

There were the usual announcements about ice on the course, unplowed roads, the dangers of hypothermia, and the fact that since this was an out-and-back course if you made it halfway and got in trouble, you might as well keep running since your only hope of being treated was to make it back to the finish line. With that, the starter pointed the gun at the air, pulled the trigger...

...and with a mighty "poink," it promptly froze solid. The field lurched exactly one step, looked at the starter, and he adroitly ad-libbed: "Um, eh, GO!"

Before me a herd of nervous, freaked-out anorexics roared off at military-afterburner pace, ironically creating more wind-chill in the process of trying to avoid wind-chill than I could bother to try and figure out. Since the field ahead weighed a collective 119 pounds, the slush was trampled down into a pretty runable surface as I plodded on down the road. "Just get through the first mile - it'll get warm then." I lied to myself. I believed it, too.

At the first mile, I had improved from cold and dry to wet and lukewarm (a lateral move, surely). However, around me were a few hearty souls that shared the same generous insulation that I did - and we quickly formed a Clydesdale grupetto that would survive until the end. Next to me was Jim; he'd come up from North Carolina to visit his parents, and decided to run this race as a training run for an upcoming marathon. Like me, he was wearing his entire closet of winter gear, and moving at the same pace. "I didn't think 10 miles was long enough... " he mused, but then added, "...but if we run slowly enough, hey - you can get almost 2 hours out of 10 miles."

I liked Jim instantly. We started talking in order to keep the pace aerobic, easy, and social. Why not? The anorexics were in a full-on panic ahead of us, why not enjoy the day at a more conversational tempo?

When he found out I was originally from New York he was shocked: "Really? I never would have known - you're far too nice to be from the North." Ouch! As the miles passed we talked about the lack of turn signals in New Jersey ("Why even install them? If you showed them to kids in Drivers Ed, would their parents even know what their kids were talking about?"), the Eagles (the team - not the National Bird), the insanity of people that follow the team in Philly, and just what it is that they're missing in their lives. Later that afternoon millions of those people would vicariously live and die with the actions of 11 men on a field, and their moods for the next 6 months would rise and fall on the results of something for which they had no control. Seemed kinda' stupid. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE football! I just, well, don't get people who's entire lives revolve around "their" team.

They call it "Passion."

I call it "No life."

Compared to that you've got guys like Jim and I who are outside on the worst weather day of the year (well, okay - out of all 18 of them) dressed like Michelin Men, moving at 6 miles per hour across slush, ice, snow, and POUD's (puddles of unknown depth), but who are having a great time of it. Why? Because we have racing, we have training. We have goals, focus, and a willingness to get off the couch and DO SOMETHING as opposed to those who simply watch something, and then base the rest of their lives on the outcome.

As we passed through intersections, people in cars waiting just looked at us and didn't know whether to laugh, frown, or shake their heads in disdain. I didn't care - I was playing in the kind of weather I was never allowed outside in as a kid. I was already wet, I was cold - but I was running! Well, okay - shuffling, squishing, and moving along at a reasonable clip...but putting foot to (almost) pavement and getting the job done. Whenever I was really cold, I'd comfort myself with the thought, "You're not riding in it. Remember Cornell?"

Thoughts of the worst bike race (and the worst racing weather I'd ever had) flashed through my head: 33 degrees, freezing rain, slush - just like today. I had to knock ice off the frame on the climbs, and then ride the brakes to keep the rims from icing up on the descents. Without endless spray from nervous wheels all around me, this was cake - running in it was fine with me.

I kept trying to take splits, but my gloves were too thick to hit the buttons. I started the countdown timer, changed the time zone, and pipped on the Indiglo before finally giving up and letting it be; I just watched the miles get slower and slower.

As if there wasn't enough to overcome, just past halfway my lower GI began to press the "Please Stop." button like a passenger on a City Bus. This was (sadly)normal for me. It's not really a complete race unless my GI gets in on the race report (just like Mike Peerless, really). It had actually been paging me since mile 2, but by 5 it was getting tough to ignore.

"Please stop." It asked.

"Dude - no. This is a 10 miler - there's nowhere to go. Please hold." I replied.

"Please, please stop." It asked, more forcefully.

"I CAN'T STOP. We're in a park in downtown Wilmington - there's NO PLACE TO GO. Please hold to the end." I reasoned.

"Fine. You asked for it." It threatened.

"Wait - How did I ask for it?" I pleaded.

"You're the one who ate Chili for lunch yesterday, then baked ham for dinner. What did you expect from me when you put that kind of junk in the trunk, yo?" My stomach hip-hopped, standing off in a buffalo stance.

"Hey - My mother-in-law made ham. What was I going to do, say no to her and eat the bread?" Who knew my stomach had street flava', anyway?

My GI fought on and cramped - and I fought back, quietly. For the next 5 miles while talking to Jim, I ran on. Sometimes rather stiffly, sometimes with my eyes crossed and watering, and all of the time wondering whereindahell my lower GI learned the phrase, 'junk in the trunk.' It wasn't pretty, but now I was pretty sure that there was little left that could go against me...and I was still running. Little victories, each and every mile.

Jim and I stayed together through all the miles, carrying on about all sorts of different topics: Water tower design (he painted them for a living); How his daughter was learning to play the guitar; how the Atkins Diet and running could work (we decided that it can't over 10 miles); The oft-repeated theme of how to run downhill on ice without falling; and wondering why it was we were getting slower, and slower, and slower...at the same heart rate.

Then it dawned on me as we passed mile 8. Most of the race had amazingly gone by in a nice, controlled, nearly-but-not-quite-hypothermic blur. I was working harder then I had all race, but our pace had slipped (hah!) into the 10's, and now I understood why. Since Jim and I were each wearing 14 non-color coordinated layers (I was in a red top with green gloves, black tights with red stripes, and a blue hat that made me look like a 200 pound elf with a Con Edison hardhat), each layer had taken on enough water to put out a small house fire. We had probably picked up 3-4 pounds of water weight, and it wasn't going to get any better. The rain wasn't stopping, and Jim and I were both steaming (literally) as we kept on keeping on, our bodies working overtime to try and produce enough heat to get to the end.

The slush wasn't helping, either. It was impossible to keep from getting splashed by anyone within a 4-foot radius, since each footfall send slushballs radiating out in all directions (unless you were an anorexic and didn't actually disturb the slush when running across it). The worst were those that landed at the back of your shoe...sending a new, cold blast of ice down the back of your foot, just when you'd stopped thinking about the last one that had landed there. However, my shoes had needed to be cleaned for a long time - they looked great, now (all white and sparkly).

Jim and I stayed together through the last two miles in Rockford Park, up the final finishing hill, and through the left turn for the line with 300 yards to go. I couldn't believe I was going to say it, but I said it: "Jim - this was fun! Come back next year, maybe it won't be this bad - it'll probably be worse." As we approached the line we said our goodbyes, shook hands, and I backed off to let him cross the line before me. Not that it mattered - we'd be recorded in 243rd and 244th place out of 328 that dared on the day, my finishing time a full 15 minutes slower then last year for the same race.

Without stopping we unceremoniously ran through the chutes, turned left, and like the other 242 runners before us rumbled back into the YMCA to get warm. It happens so often in long runs - You start talking and make a friend that becomes everything for that 1 hour and 36 minutes, and then peacefully fades to nothing other then a fond memory of an epic day as soon as it's over. It's the split-personality nature of distance running: You go the distance to test yourself, but sometimes having someone there makes it that much better.

It's worth noting that after Jim was out of sight, I achieved my fastest speed of the day and broke the sound barrier to find a Men's Room. Thank God - no line.

Afterwards I headed down to the locker room and took off my wet layers as fast as I could. As I poured them into my backpack I was amazed at just how much it all weighed, and just how cold it was; I must have had a gallon of water on my person for the last half of the race. I made my way to the showers, turned on the hot water, and stood there...and stood there...and stood there...and just kept on smiling. While it's never okay to stand around by yourself in a Men's Locker Room and smile (just one of those unwritten guy rules), I couldn't help it.

Nature had given me her worst, and I'd honestly taken it, dealt with it, and had a good time of it.

Maybe after all the energy I wasted fretting about the bad weather I'd been handed race after race last year, that was the lesson I needed: I can't control the weather, but how I react to it is all me. If dressing up and slowing down is the way to go, bring it on - I can handle that.

Hurricane Bob
* Widebody Racing at its Finest. *