Day 4,295—The Shippey Part II Running with Company—

 

I don’t have a lot of time to write, and I wasn’t able to get any more writing done last night, so I'll jump straight into the second part of my Shippey write-up. It was cold this morning, but I am feeling stronger. At the same time, I'm nervous about all the snow in the forecast. I am not afraid of running in the snow, but I am getting tired of being cold.

The Shippey Part II: Pat’s Gloves

Loop II

Time of Day: 10:21 a.m.

        I ended up talking to two runners at the end of Loop 1 and part of Loop 2, if I remember right. First, I started talking to Pat who I had done a couple of races, including the Shippey last year and the Get Your Butt Kicked the year before. We ended up talking about different races and plans, and a little bit about how bad the year before was. He had done the 100K and was doing the 100K again this year. He, like me, had spent most of his career in education. We talked about teaching and school-related stuff. I think he told me his wife was a teacher. He had taught college, if I remember right, at a school that used to be prominent, that is now closed.

        I was probably complaining about how wet my gloves were and how hard it was to keep my hands warm. He said that he read on a forum for female runners that if you wear plastic gloves under your regular gloves, it is a huge help to keep your gloves dry and your hands warm. He told me the name of the plastic gloves because they weren’t the typical blue sanitary gloves as I had imagined, but I have forgotten now. He said that when we got back to Emerson, he would let me try a pair. He had brought a box and had plenty to share. When I put them on, I immediately knew this was a good idea and wondered how I hadn’t thought of it before. The gloves kept my hands from sweating, but they also didn’t dry my hands out. My heated gloves weren’t working well at all. I had brought enough batteries for multiple replacements, which wasn’t easy considering each glove required 3 double-A batteries, but I was determined to have a plan and be prepared. Yet when I initially tried them, the batteries died after at most 30 minutes. They were completely worthless, or so I thought. They did have a pocket that went over the back of your hand that was the spot for the battery, and that large pocket ended up being hugely helpful in my quest to keep my hands from freezing.

        I crammed two hand warmers in those pockets, and with my new plastic gloves as liners, I was golden, and my hands were finally at a consistent temperature. Later, I added two more hand warmers to my gloves, and these two I put directly over my plastic gloves, but they did the trick. Usually, if I have hand warmers inside my gloves, my hands get too warm, and I end up having to take them out, and my gloves end up getting wet, and then frozen. It is not a fun cycle to get caught in, but this was like a magic trick. It stopped the cycle because it prevented my hands from sweating even if they were warm. I am going to have to immediately see if I can find the type of plastic gloves they were, so I can use this again.

        Unfortunately, this was the last loop I went without my poles and had a decent pace. Once within 10 miles of the end of this loop, I was contemplating quitting, and my leg was aching from my recent trips. I didn’t want to, but I knew if I was going to finish, I was going to need to take a long break after 40, which would end up making it impossible for me to catch up later in the race, but I didn’t have a choice. It was either that or quitting. I decided I would change my shirt, my jacket, my socks, and reapply Vaseline. I told myself I would try to be done by 20 minutes, but once I sat down and started changing, that 20 minutes went by fast.

Loop 2

Time: 5:26:36

Loop Pace: 16:15 mi

Clock Time: 9:27:56

Distance: 40.18

Time of Day: 3:27 p.m.