By Katy Peplinskie
One can easily imagine 36-year-old Alan Simpson standing at his front door on a frigid, February day.
He listens to the wind howling outside, and watches through the window as it tears through the tree tops and sends an empty trash can barreling down the street. He stammers a moment, hand on the doorknob — then dashes into the crippling cold.
“Sometimes I question my sanity,” he says.
Simpson is a winter runner. He has been for almost 20 years.
He runs on days when his car engine won’t turn over.
He runs on days when white exhaust fumes linger above the highway.
He runs on days when the frigid air makes his nostril hair freeze.
Simpson wears glasses and they frequently fog up. He often loses feeling in his fingers and toes.
Sometimes, the blustery wind makes his face raw and frostbitten.
“Once, I even slipped on the ice, fell on my tail bone, and couldn’t move for a week,” he says.
Nonetheless, it gives him a smug feeling to see the streets deserted and to know he’s one
of the few people tough enough to take on Ottawa’s fierce winters.
Amber Trimble, 23, is another winter runner, and part of the Running Room’s Half Marathon Clinic. She’s gearing up to compete in the ING Ottawa Half Marathon this coming May, so she’s constantly training outside.
“Winter running is tough at first,” she admits. “But once you warm up it’s amazing. It gives you a feeling of satisfaction to know you’re making healthy choices.”
When asked why she doesn’t just train on a treadmill, she
says it’s boring to run on one spot.
“Plus, having fresh air in my lungs — even if it’s cold air — is better than the stale air
I’d be breathing at the gym.”
Trimble adds how meditative it is when the only sounds she hears, in the still of a winter night, are her own heartbeat and the rhythmic thump of her feet hitting the ground.
“It centres me,” she says.
Still, battling the elements takes preparation. The trick to staying warm is to stay dry, experts say. That’s why athletic companies have developed technical materials to manage moisture and regulate bodytemperature.
“These materials are designed to act as a second layer of skin,” says Doug Kay, a sales associate at Bank Street’s Running Room. They quickly wick perspiration away so that runners don’t feel damp or cold.
Kay says it’s good to layer dense, thermal clothing on top of this base layer, then to top it off with a wind-proof jacket. That should allow runners stay dry and warm, regardless of the temperature outside.
But Simpson says there’s a limit to how effective such specialized clothing actually is: “When it’s cold out, it’s cold out — there’s no counteracting a wind chill of minus 35 with some new-age material. All you can do is curse a bit, [and] then deal.
“No one said winter running was for the weak of heart,” Simpson adds.