A couple of years ago I decided to walk to meetings that take place in different buildings around our campus, rather than drive. I figured a little bit of exercise would do me good. While this is fairly easy to do when the weather is nice, the weather this past week provided some challenges.
Friday morning was not typical for early December: temperature was around -7C, the wind was blowing at 30-50 km/h and the wind chill temperature was calculated to be around -15C. While Pittsburgh had been spared the massive snowfall that was recorded to our North and Winter was still officially about a week away according to the calendar, it certainly felt wintry when I began my walk.
Distance to the building I was headed for was about 0.5 km and as I walked there, I saw various co-workers driving by in their cars, giving me strange looks. Once the meeting was completed, I decided to expand my "stroll" and take the 1.5 km nature trail before returning to my office.
A friend who sometimes walks on the nature trail with me stopped his car as I was leaving the parking lot, rolled down the window and asked if I needed a ride back to my office. "No thanks, I'd like to get some fresh air and clear my head" was my response. He laughed as he drove off.
Once I arrived back at my office about 30 minutes later, my face red from the wind and the cold, my glasses fogging-up from the condensation, I saw that same friend in the hallway. He asked if I had taken the nature trail and I told him I had. He laughed again and said it was too cold for that and that I was a "braver fool" than he. We chuckled good-naturedly, but I could tell from his tone he was also slightly envious.
As my body began to warm-up and I got down to business, I found I was re-energized and felt pretty good. When nature throws a challenge like that and you can respond, it has a way of making you feel good.
Some might shake their heads and wonder if I've lost my mind. I just know that they can call me a fool, but it won't change the way I feel once I have overcome a challenge - even a relatively minor one like this.
Well written! I keep wondering whether the next evolutionary step for Western man and woman will be an atrophy of the legs--toddlers are given electric cars to drive around before they are able to stand and walk. Talking of low temperatures, a few years ago I attended a conference in Odessa, Ukraine, at the end of January. With a couple of friends we walked out for half an hour in something like -15C. It felt good--I just could not move my jaw for about 20 minutes afterwards.
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