Knee Pads and Mask

September 16, 2011

Canajoharie NY

No, I haven’t gotten mythically religious and started praying, nor have I robbed a gas station.

The morning was cold….really cold…for a SoCal boy…. a chill factor of 40.  I wore jammy bottoms for supplemental long johns under the jeans, long sleeve Harley T with a short sleeve Harley T on top of it, a long sleeve shirt, Jeans jacket, and then raingear on top of that as a wind breaker. I figured that this would be enough to keep me warm….and it did as I got on the I-95.  BUT, before I reached the next exit my face was already freezing.  I pulled off at the exit and dug thru my tool kit and cold wx gear and found the neophrene face mask…I no sooner had put it on when my face warmed up immediately!

So off I went ….but only as far as the next exit…my knees started to freeze…they were taking the full brunt of the wind chill factor.  I needed a solution…the simplest way was to put something warmer between the jeans and the raingear….ahhh, I have two heavy duty synthetic cloth rags that could be folded over and placed over the knees!   So, pull off at the next, get the rags outa the bags and put them down the inside of the raingear…back on the I-90 and wow, what a difference, I was good to go to Portland and beyond.

The day slowly warmed up, but the gusting wind only got worse until I reached Worcester MA when it started to smooth out.  I ran all the way to Canajoharie , 50 miles north of Albany, for a total run of around 460 miles. 

However, about 30 miles from C-town (I think a pattern is developing here) there was a lot of construction on two bridges and it slowed/stopped traffic for an added 30 minutes to the run.  This meant that I was out there when the sun dipped behind the hills and I got cold again…and I'm coming down with a slight head cold.

So it’s into the hot shower and a long sleep. 

I may want to rethink my lack of religious orientation and use the knee pads to pray to the Harley gods for warm and dry weather for the next 24 days J

Gonzo
twitter: @GonzoCrossUSA
email: GonzoCrossUSA@gmail.com