I was running for a small period of time with a large German man. By small period I mean until it got cold. So… one week just before Thanksgiving, that’s how long I ran with him.

M Marine was asking me about it during a recent long, tedious drive to Ohio. We had just finished trying to calculate the actual speed of his truck if you took into account the new, larger tires. I suppose it was time to move to a more mundane subject. He asked if I’d been running recently with his friend the Giant Gentle German (heretofore know as GGG).

“Of course not,” I said to him, turning my nose up at the thought.
“Why not?” he asked in return.
“Because it’s cold,” I replied. The ‘you idiot’ was probably implied a little more strongly than necessary.
“Cold just makes you work harder,” he laughed. “It makes the survival instincts kick in.”

I’m sorry, but whomever it was that discovered this should just be locked in a room somewhere. I remember when I first read that article in the New York Times. I posted it to facebook. I was highly skeptical and not because I just don’t like to exercise, as it has been suggested.

It’s because, dear reader, freezing cold temperatures do not inspire me to rush out and run far distances. It makes my jaw hurt, my nose hurt, my lungs hurt. There is a distinct feeling of suffocation in the winter times for me and my immediate survival technique is to get out of there. I mean, who when faced with freezing climes ever thought to themselves “best go for a run” before they thought “best make some form of shelter”?

Yes it’s true, GGG may think along the lines of physical activity to stave off death but I want to construct a lean-to next to the jet fuel storage units.

Jet fuel, yes, since we run at the airport. Air field, something like that. Ran, rather. We ran for a week there. Running, I’m told, is bad for the body so I’ve been keeping up the yoga and hiding from the cold.