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| Think he's been chewing Orbit gum? |
My little Drifter had apparently gone to Burlington Coat Factory in October and got himself some thick winter fleece that far surpassed the attempts Jake and Willow were making for coats. Regardless, in advance of the storm, I blanketed all three.
Blanketing was a terrifying thing for Drifter back in March when I brought him home from Angel's Camp. We were hit with 80 mph gusts the first night at "Brown Jail" (a nickname for my barn, since Drifter came from the Emerald Bliss of Central California). Those gusts would lift the blanket sideways like the flag on the moon and Drifter was certain I was going to strangle or suffocate him with it. But upon the third blanketing of his life (after a summer of lots of handling and about 10 rides), the little guy stood with all four hooves in cement while I wrapped his little body with a big warm blue Weatherbeeta hug.
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| Cold jail. |
Also, I have an upcoming marathon. A few months ago, before I knew better, I signed up for the Rock N Roll Marathon in Vegas on December 4 (with their enticing tagline: "The World’s Largest Nighttime Running Event"). I've made a valiant attempt to train 'barefoot' with the hopes of completing this marathon without running shoes. I hit the streets in my Vibram FiveFingers (they're kindof like gloves for your feet) in snow conditions. That was a unique experience. My feet ended up getting really wet. I was pummeled by heavy snowballs being chucked at my head by windblown tree limbs. And the hems of my pants got so soaked that I was running on them. Each step with wadded up cold cotton pantlegs around my feet got more and more annoying until I started to run holding up the waist, which really began to mess up my gait.
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| I had to hold up my pants to see my VFFs. |
I endured this misery for about 7 miles until I had to drop-trou at Gino's Tires in Bear City. I had some slick running capris on so I wasn't completely bare, but the Old Man Winter was gnawing on my fishbelly white skin with his frosty teeth. And I still had three miles to go!
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| This really doesn't look that bad, does it? |
And that wasn't the worst of it.
There's something that happens to a lot of runners when they are putting down some long, hard miles. Let's put it this way, if I was running a marathon, I was thinking about a cheerleader on the sidelines holding up a sign like this:
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| She must run marathons... |
I didn't. But I really thought about it. And I survived my first miserably cold, barefoot running experience. I'd like to tell you how "zen" it felt with giant snowflakes surrounding me as if the road was my snowglobe. And yeah, maybe there was a moment when the song Alice on my iPod told me "I will get by. I will survive." And I looked up and some snowflakes were floating approximately 5.8 miles per hour alongside me. But I was kindof having an emergency and couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked to.
It took hours for my core temperature to get back from the dead.
No, I am not much of a winter girl at all.
