Every Monday through Saturday my wife and I go out for a 3-mile walk in the morning. Then on a few other days of the week I will go out for an additional jog by myself. Although, as I noted in in a column a few years ago, going out for a run is easier to do if you have a running buddy, but unfortunately I’ve been flying solo for a few years now.
One problem with flying solo is that going for runs by myself has the unintended effect of making it easier for me to rationalize NOT going for runs. The primary reason being the thought, “the weather isn’t cooperating,” goes through my head. An excellent rationalization that results in me not doing what I know I should do – go for a jog.
As a result, my weekly mileage has decreased the last few years. In addition, I very rarely jog continuously anymore as I’ve become a fan of Jeff Galloway’s run-walk-run method. Where you jog for a certain time interval, then walk for a certain time interval, then jog again. And continue back and forth for whatever distance or time you’ve set out to accomplish. These days my preferred intervals are one minute of jogging and one minute of walking.
So, if you see me outside dressed in athletic garb walking by myself on local streets or paths, it likely means I’m in the one-minute “walk” section of a run-walk-run session. Just wait a minute and you’ll see me start to jog again!
Now, the walks that my wife and I take each morning are done in just about any weather other than during thunderstorms or ice. As a friend’s Norwegian exchange student once told us, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.” This from a young man who grew up in Hammerfest, Norway – which claims to be the northernmost city on the planet. Go ahead, Google Map it; it’s up there!
In the vein of not wearing “bad clothing,” my wife and I have an assortment of “good clothing” we use to allow ourselves to get out for our walks regardless of the weather. During spring, summer and fall this usually means just one or two layers of clothing. And these layers work great.
However, in the winter, I might have five layers on top, three layers on bottom, gloves, neck gaiter and hat. To add insult to all this weight, unfortunately I have Richard Nixon syndrome and sweat profusely, especially when bundled up in multiple layers. This results in me coming back from our winter walks completely dry on the outside, and completely soaked underneath.
But, as I mentioned above, I’m not so weather-resistant about my solo run-walks. I will happily procrastinate and ruminate and fluctuate about whether the weather is acceptable for me to go out. And believe me, it doesn’t take much to make me rationalize that not going out is in my best interest. So, if the weather is not cooperating, I usually defer to staying indoors.
Luckily I live here in Happy Valley, home to the world renowned Penn State Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, that places over 90% of its undergraduates and virtually all of its grad students in jobs in their major field. In other words, Penn Staters are pretty darn good at this weather thing.
Not to mention we’re the birthplace and home of AccuWeather, the most statistically accurate source of weather forecasts and warnings on the planet. A company that literally forecasts for every longitude and latitude point on Earth.
In other words, I’m essentially living in the weather capital of the world, so I just follow the weather forecasts and my decisions to run or not run are pretty easy.
Except, there are those who would tell me that I’m wrong. That I don’t live in the weather capital of the world.
A few weeks ago my wife and I had to make a trip to Kittanning, a place in Pennsylvania that I had never visited. While there I was also educated on two things about Kittanning. The first is that it’s not pronounced like a cat giving birth – kittening – with the emphasis on the first syllable. It’s pronounced like what I do at the beach, just with a “ki” in front: ki-TAN-ing.
The second thing I was educated on was that if you were a fan of the television crime drama “Justified,” scenes from the show’s 2010 pilot were filmed there.
Having been properly Kittanning-educated, my wife and I decided to take the back roads home from Kittanning rather than the fastest US-422, US-22 and I-99 route that the map app suggested – and that we had used to drive there that morning. We felt a change of scenery would be nice.
It turned out the “back road” selection for our drive home took us through (maybe you see where this is going) Punxsutawney. Another place I had never visited.
Well, one can’t possibly go through Punxsutawney without also stopping at, you guessed it, Gobbler’s Knob, home of the great weather-predicting groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. Reports are that 30,000 people travel to Punxsutawney every year to see Phil’s weather prediction on Groundhog Day.
So, we stopped. And we saw.
We drove through the grand arch welcoming you to Gobbler’s Knob. We saw the 700-yard Gobbler’s Knob Trail with informational signs and metal sculptures. We visited the gift shop and came away with souvenirs. And we walked up on the stage and stood behind the log from whence Phil emerges, and looked out over the lawn that Phil looks out on from his perch atop the log.
It was all very exciting and surreal. Especially if you’ve ever watched the actual live news reports from Groundhog Day – not the movie version.
And then we saw the sign on the back of the stage that proclaims Punxsutawney as the “Weather Capital of the World.” That’s when I knew that my weather beliefs were being challenged. And although I disagree with the sentiment, arguing with the other side is a bit difficult.
Why? Because I don’t speak “groundhogese.”
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
