This is the Padua Podcast Network. I hope we meet some of these people today because only the clinically insane are going to be out here today. And I think those are generally very interesting people. Welcome to Running Fever.

My name is Michael Davis, and this is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. And we’re active today, I’ll tell you that. But it’s all about living long and loving life.

Love life, you gotta do some crazy things once in a while. Well, it’s a beautiful day at Lake Fayetteville. And it’s, well, it’s snowing. And it’s been snowing throughout the night.

It’s morning. It’s almost 10 minutes to 8. And if you’re on YouTube, you can see that it’s a winter wonderland. It’s snowing, several inches of snow on the ground.

And it’s cold. Why am I out here? Well, I’m out here for you. I really wanted to have this experience recorded for the show.

And the only way to do that is to come out here. And we’ll probably go out on Dean’s Trail as well. Because we’re expecting to get a lot more snow, but I drove here to Lake Fayetteville today. Fashion department.

I finally got my base layer in from Timu, so I’ve got two layers on the bottom. Probably should figure out how to add another layer for days like this. Three layers on the top, and I’ve got gloves, a hat, or a beanie, or whatever you want to call it, and my hood up. And again, my face is cold, and probably I’m not going to get warm during this trip, no matter how fast I go.

But you know what? I’m not the first one here. I can see a bike track and footprints. So I hope we meet some of these people today because only the clinically insane are going to be out here today.

And I think those are generally very interesting people. So we will see. But the tracks look like somebody running. And we already know that people who run can sometimes be crazy, addicted to the running they do.

But it’s a single track of footprints that are far enough apart to be either someone running or a giant of some kind. But it’s snow. It’s not like it’s ice, you know. Oh, and continuing the fashion department, I’m wearing my Doc Martens standard boots here today, not wearing walking shoes.

And the reason should be pretty obvious. I wanted traction for the snow. And today, unlike the last time I hiked in these boots, I wore the thick socks, so I shouldn’t have any injuries of that nature on this trip. Oh, there’s a squirrel!

Oh, man. No rest for the weary. No rest for the squirrels. It is beautiful here.

You know, there’s a blanket of snow on the ground, and it’s very light snow. Might as well get into the weather report. I don’t know exactly how long it’s been snowing because I did not see snow when i went to bed last night and this morning was snowing and snow on the ground obviously so it’s got to have been snowing steadily for all night basically because you know like i said there’s already several inches of snow But I mean, if the snow just continually comes down, even if it’s very light snow, you can barely see it, then eventually you’re going to build up that accumulation.

And even here, with the trees overhead, there’s plenty of snow. When I got into the truck, I wanted to wait until it was light. I’d get up really early, but I wanted to wait until it was light. Of course, it was kind of tricky because this storm is going to get worse, and driving conditions are going to worsen.

And obviously, it’s colder this morning than it is going to be this afternoon. I definitely didn’t want to come earlier because I wanted to be sure that we could capture this on video. But when I got out to the truck, it was 39 degrees, and that is in my garage. Of course, I’m concerned about plumbing and electricity. That’s the main thing that we’re concerned with.

Quickly, before I even left my neighborhood, the temperature of my truck was down to 25, and it’s 10 degrees here. So, possibly the coldest I’ve ever been out on the show here. So starting to warm up a little bit, but I’m gonna be cold this whole time. So, not walking terribly fast.

I don’t have miles per hour. Only been walking for about 10 minutes. Seems longer. Okay.

So yeah, 10 degrees here now. I was wondering how, you know, in countries like, you know, Sweden or, I think, Finland, places that are just very cold, handle all this stuff. I know, like they have block heaters for their vehicles and stuff like that, but how do they keep the electricity going when there’s snow and ice on the lines? Maybe, maybe they’re all underground, but you know, maybe cold affects underground lines as well. I don’t know, and I don’t know. I’m thinking in a place like that, you probably have backups like kerosene heaters and things like that, which I don’t have. I’m completely dependent on my gas central heating and blankets, that’s all I’ve got. Well, somebody has pretty much traveled the entire distance I’ve traveled here today, there’s a little wobble by the bike, maybe slipping a little bit. It’s interesting how situations like this, the tracks tell a story. Story of what happened and how it happened. So you can tell, I mean, look back at my steps, they’re pretty close together, but the ones on the road are not. And there’s a little track of, you know, sort of a, where the snow was brushed as the foot was coming down. But yeah, it might be interesting to read up on those places and learn a little more about them.

You know, we don’t have this kind of weather much around here. Certainly not to this extent. This is probably the worst storm in many years. Somebody was telling me that there was a chance it might drift to the north and we wouldn’t get snow, but we would just get ice.

And I know from experience that that’s a very bad thing. Because ice, snow, you can grip a little bit, you know. And when it gets packed, it definitely gets slippery. But ice, nothing you can do about that.

It’s just hard to move around in. Fortunate was the timing of this. It started last night, which was a Friday night, so we’ve got the weekend when most people don’t have to be out on the roads. My church is still holding services this weekend, but it’s been made clear that you should not come if you think you cannot do so safely.

My hands are like ice right now. I’m going to try to put them inside the hoodie, but I don’t think that will help. This clothing helps trap heat. But if there’s no heat to trap, then you’re out of luck.

And soon, all of these tracks are going to be filled in. And, you know, by tonight, it’ll be the really, really crazy people that are out here. Criminally insane people. Now, it’s only the merely crazy people like me.

I did have a short distance to drive here. Only takes a few minutes. And I did have one hill to navigate. The rest was pretty level.

It’s not very noisy out here. Going by this busy road here. And there’s the sign for Fayetteville. So this is the north side of the track.

So I believe I’m technically leaving Fayetteville and going into Springdale at this point. And that is Old Missouri Road, a major four-lane north-south corridor. But yes, very quiet. One thing, though, not many people are out driving.

And for another thing, snow has a dampening effect. It doesn’t reflect sound as easily as concrete, which is what I’m walking on under the snow. A six-ton bridge and a creek. Standard bridges you see all over the Greenway.

I don’t know if you know this. I’m working on a series that will show you the entire Razorback Greenway one mile at a time. I don’t see any ice or anything. There’s snow down there, and water is still flowing in this creek.

Whatever the creek name might be, so where was I On the weather department which i think may take the entire episode because that’s the biggest thing happening right now. There goes another car silently moving along. Yeah, my distance is not being recorded for some reason; time is, but not the distance. So two inches were expected last night, and that may have been accurate. Again, I went to bed at 8:30 or 9, so there might have been a couple of inches before midnight today. Actually, no, the updated forecast for last night was six inches.

Today, the last I heard, was four to six inches. And then tomorrow, Sunday, one more inch of snow. And it’s obviously not going to melt, so we’re looking at possibly 13 inches of snow by the end of the weekend. And I don’t think it’s going to get any warmer next week.

So travel may be difficult during the work week as well. We shall see. And it’s not like the Northeast, where they get this stuff every year. And so they’re prepared with salt trucks, plows, and things like that.

No such thing here. There is a little bit of equipment that’s only going to go on the largest roads, not on any side roads or anything like that. And I actually lived in Massachusetts for five years. It is typical to have negative temperatures up there.

And when I say negative, I mean like negative 20. Not unusual at all for the wintertime in Massachusetts. And snow is just there. I mean, snow is pretty much there from March until, or not March, but October, I think, yeah.

I went up there in October, and I was staying at one of those places that has rooms with, you know, like suites with, you know, for places that you would live longer than just a night. You might have a separate bedroom, a very small separate living room, and a kitchen. So staying in one of those places is pretty nice. And I remember there being snow on the ground in October.

But when I say there’s snow for all that time, I mean there is literally snow on the ground the entire time. Now, it doesn’t look like the winter wonderland that I’m walking through right now. Not at all. As you know, as I explained earlier, places like that have plenty of equipment and procedures in place to deal with snow, so that commerce doesn’t entirely come to a halt.

And so you’ve got snow plows out on the streets, on the interstates, and everywhere. And not only that, but every business hires people to come in and clear the snow off their parking lots. If you didn’t, nobody could park there. And what they do with this snow They don’t generally truck it off, although I think that’s what they do in the city, because there’s no place to put it in the city.

But they just pile it up in whatever grassy areas there are outside the parking area. And once you pile something up like that, it keeps freezing. It never gets warm enough to completely melt that big, you know, solid hunk of frozen snow. So it literally stays there the entire year, and you see these.

I mean, it’s really ugly. It’s because snow, when you pile it up from a parking lot, is dirty. It’s very dirty. And so you’ve got these big, dirty piles of dirty snow all over the place.

And that’s just what it looks like in the winter in the city in the wintertime. I think we’ve gone about a mile, but again, my distance isn’t working for some reason. It’s 25 minutes, but it’s now 2.8 miles on Lake Fayetteville Trail, and 3.8, I believe, is where we start. Anyway, I’m not too worried about it.

I’m just going to go out for no more than an hour today. I’m feeling pretty good right now. My hands are still like ice, you know. But my body’s doing pretty well.

My face, of course, is frozen. And driving, you know, over the years, I’ve always heard people say and complain about other drivers. Well, they don’t know how to drive in the snow. I’m guessing that the people saying this probably also don’t know how to drive in the snow.

Because it really, you know, they told me when I got there, I said, you know, how do you get through this stuff? And it’s really just two words, slow and steady. So that’s all there is to it, really. Being patient, being cautious, I mean, don’t add the pedal to the metal when you’re coming over the top of a hill.

But you know, accidents happen. And mainly, I think it’s because of just too much traffic. As long as you can stay separated. And this is true of normal driving, too.

And there is an animal, a medium-sized animal that has crossed the road here. I can’t really tell from the footprints whether it’s a deer or a dog. Two-legged creature. I don’t know.

I’m not much of a tracker. I don’t usually come across this sort of thing. So that’s what I did on the way here. I’m in my driveway and regular two-wheel drive.

Heard a lot of crunching of snow. I didn’t lose the grip. And then when I got on the road, I put it in four-wheel high and took off. You know, it’s hard to turn when you’re in four-wheel drive because those front wheels are driving.

That mechanism makes it difficult to turn. Yeah, I’ve seen several of these, which must be animal tracks going across the road, unless there’s a human walking on stilts. Seems insane, but it is. This is an insane day.

What are you going to do? Got to use your imagination. And it’s just a beautiful field here, with a gray sky and a grayish-blue sky. Trees, a little bit of greenery on the evergreens.

There’s plenty of those here, actually. And lots of trees with no leaves on them that are gathering snow on the tops of their branches. Not very windy. Although the snow is coming down slightly diagonally.

Looks like the bike track is fresher here. And actually, the snow is thinner. I want to walk at least a mile today, so I’m going to say let’s go for at least 40 minutes. I think the cold has affected my Samsung S3 Frontier, and as a result, it’s not showing the distance.

I don’t mind it. I’m glad I did this. You know, I’ve done hundreds of shows, and a lot of them looked similar because we’re walking them a day later with the weather the same, and so forth. And this is definitely different.

I like it. And I’m feeling a little better today, right now. Even my hands, I’ve had them kind of shoved in the front pocket of my hoodie for a while, and that seems to be helping a little bit. So, diet slash weight report, or department, diet department.

Weighed in at 235 this morning, slightly down, actually, from a couple of days ago, but obviously much higher than I want to be. A couple weeks ago, you know two three weeks ago I was between 210 and 220 for a long period of time. I need to get back to that, but that’s why I’m out here. I’m obviously getting too much of some things, but exercise is not one of them.

So today I’m getting some exercise in hopes of burning some calories and melting some pounds away. And, you know, I mean, this is a big storm. It’s not very common here, and we know the infrastructure isn’t there to make this not a big deal. So it’s a big deal, and I understand that.

But you know, I heard of somebody going to Walmart and saying, “The shelves are empty.” I don’t know, I think that’s a little crazy you know certainly we had that kind of thing going on during covid when people didn’t want to go out much and it makes sense but and I suppose this could make travel difficult for a week but uh definitely no more than that And so my weekly shopping was adequate for me, and I think would be adequate for just about anybody, but people kind of overdo it, I think. It’s my personal opinion.

Of course, it’s better safe than sorry. So I definitely understand the feeling. So 35 minutes, and my watch usually talks to me every mile. They’ll say, you know, you’ve traveled one mile, your heart rate is such and such.

I’m thinking my heart rate isn’t that. It’s one, oh, it’s 130. Going to this. And I know that at my age, about 113 would be the target heart rate, so.

getting a pretty good cardio workout apparently. So I’m not going very fast, but it may be just the effort required to go up and down in the snow with my feet is putting a little bit more stress on them. I’m gonna go for 40 minutes and then walk back. So I’m thinking maybe three point something miles altogether. I don’t think it’ll be four miles. I just don’t think I’m making that much distance, but my watch is not telling me, so we’re at mile 2.30, so I don’t think we’re going that fast.

I think it’s like 3.18, so probably only a mile here, maybe. Possibly only a mile. I’m going to try to pick up the pace here and see what we can do. We’ve been going for 43 minutes, almost.

All right. So yeah, you know, I don’t want to call those people crazy. They’re just being cautious. And that’s a good thing, you know?

I mean, you don’t want your family to go hungry or without whatever you need to get into the store. They were spreading salt in the parking lot at work when I left on Friday. But the snow didn’t come till much later, after I went to bed. Or, either that, or it was so light I went to bed, and there was no visible accumulation because I did check.

But it was predicted to start at 2 p.m. yesterday. Definitely did not start then. So I don’t know if that means it’s gonna go longer or what.

So, despite the tracks, I have not seen anybody on the trail today. So they must have done their thing, maybe did one circuit, and gone away. And I can already see that with the falling of snow, the tracks are slowly fading away. It’s slow because it’s very light snow, but it’s just continuous, you know.

Implications of cold weather? Probably not a good idea to go out in this weather. Honestly, probably not the best idea. But I believe that I’ll be fine, you know, with my layers, my gloves, my hat, and so forth, and I won’t suffer any frostbite or anything like that.

So my new limit, I think, is going to be zero degrees. Because today it’s 10, and I think I’m doing pretty well. I’m not venturing terribly far. Maybe a mile, maybe more than a mile.

not really sure i think it’s 3.18 and then we’re 2.8 or something like that so — live math folks — I think it’s about a mile. Well, nope, that wouldn’t be true, 2.2 more like, because we’re subtracting and so forth. So I’m not too worried about it, but obviously, at some point, frostbite kicks in. You know, they say that your breath doesn’t, you know, you not only can see your breath, but it freezes as soon as it comes out. I don’t think we’re at that point yet, and I don’t think we will get to that point. But it does occasionally get below zero here.

I’m going to commit to not going out when it’s below zero. I can feel that my beard is kind of stiff, so whatever moisture was there is freezing up. My ear feels pretty cold on this left side for some reason. So maybe I need some more Protection, maybe a balaclava would be good.

My entire head, except for my eyes. And I’d have to have my mouth open so I could speak into the microphone. My mouth was exposed at some point. Be able to speak without being muffled.

There they are. Two deer. And it’s just standing there as I’m walking toward him or her. There’s another one.

So three deer I’ve seen today are running around. Jumping. That is beautiful to see. The other one’s still over here somewhere.

In the woods. The deer are merry today, merry deer. I don’t see the other one. It’s disappeared.

So I think these tracks are deer tracks. Squirrel, you don’t even, they don’t even hardly touch the snow when they’re jumping over. But it could be squirrel tracks somewhere. I can feel my heart beating a little faster right now.

I’m going up an incline. It’s a slow, not terribly steep incline, but it’s nonetheless. I remember coming down it on the way here. So it’s the most inclineous, that’s a word, it’s the biggest incline. So I can see my own footprints here. Looks like.

Although they’re really far apart. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a new player on the scene.

Who knows? Those look like they’re actually melted, like someone’s feet that were on fire. Maybe they’ve got shoe heaters. Shoe heaters.

That’s what I need today. Maybe hand warmers. Yep, it’s a beautiful day at Lake Fayetteville. I haven’t seen the lake today.

Would have been on my left, but I didn’t get that far. The trees were too thick. Or maybe I just didn’t notice it. I did see a creek.

But, uh… You know, I’m not sure what this is. A couple of benches and a plaque of some kind. And a little road going back there.

Oh! Okay. That was close. There’s ice here underneath the snow.

Alright, so I’m going to clear this off and see what it says. The Oxbow. Something has happened to this thing. Mail Road.

The Oxbow route comes to Fayetteville. That must be this mail road here. Mail is a big deal. Go back and look at my Davidsonville episode.

First town in Arkansas. It wasn’t considered a town until we had a postmaster. Even back then, this was probably the 19th century, sometime, maybe early 19th century. Remember, we’re in the Midwest, we’re not on the East Coast, where it goes back to the 1600s.

We’re in 1800s territory. And communication, as it is today, was very important back then. By the way, my hands are warm now. So gloves really do work.

And I think it’s helpful to be exercising and maybe even putting my gloved hands in my hoodie pocket works as well. I don’t know. Beautiful day, winter wonderland. Glad I came out today.

So, if you’re contemplating your own winter exercise routine and you’re in a place like I am that occasionally experiences some snow. Maybe you’re in a place that has a lot of snow, and you can tell me a few things about it. That’d be welcome for sure. But you can exercise in the snow.

By the way, I remember I thought about this as I was putting on my boots. Back in my naval academy days, it was popular to run in combat boots. And, you know, you can imagine the sort of culture there that leads to that. But also, there was this thing called the seawall.

And it, you know, Naval Academy is right there on the Severn River, right there on the water. So along the water line, waterfront, if you want to call it that, was a series of enormous rocks. I’m not sure how to say how big they are, but I mean, not as big as a car, but they’re big, big enough to walk around on a little bit. And it was popular to run the seawall.

And I can see it’s kind of like hiking or mountain biking, you know, it’s a challenge because of the uneven terrain. And these rocks are even more dangerous and unpredictable than a lot of the hiking trails that I’m on, for sure. And so it wasn’t uncommon to see someone running the seawall in combat boots, similar to the work boots I’m wearing today, even in the wintertime when it was even more treacherous. And Annapolis, closer to the sea, and probably about the same latitude as we are right now.

maybe even a little farther south. This is considered on the edge between the southern region of the United States and the Midwest region. And Maryland is considered to be southern, as I think Arkansas is as well. I consider it to be southern.

Culturally, even in this northern part of the state. Physically, up to interpretation, I suppose. Anyway, this activity of running on the seawall in the wintertime in combat boots was also, in addition to just being part of the culture, I think, part of the reason it was in that culture was a book, a book called A Sense of Honor, written by James Webb. James Webb has been the Secretary of Defense.

I believe he’s been a senator in Virginia. And he’s been an author. I’m not sure which he’s best known for, but he’s written several novels. One of them is A Sense of Honor.

And he was a graduate of the Naval Academy. And I believe he was there in the early 70s, at least according to the book. That’s how the experience is described with the dress and all. But he describes a very harsh culture, especially for the first-year students called plebes.

And I do agree. It’s been over an hour now. I do agree that it was pretty harsh. It’s really tough; that’s what they call plebe year.

And it formed my character to an extent. There’s always something that, when bad times come along, I can say, well, you know, I survived that experience. And it’s not much more difficult than that, psychologically, physically, in every way. And it’s generally, certainly, what he describes, whether it’s embellished for the sake of fiction or simply the truth of a different time. I was there between 84 and 88.

He was there 10 years earlier. And it’s generally assumed that things get easier for the plebes over time. Whether that’s true or not, I really don’t know. Because if you’ve experienced a tough plebe year, you’re probably going to inflict that on the plebes under your charge when you become an upperclassman.

And it’s all about the upperclassmen. They’re the ones that determine how your plebe year’s gonna go. So, I don’t really know, but I know what the book described. And in the book, which of course, practically everybody who goes to the Nail Academy had read, at least at that point.

I don’t know if it’s true today. But it’s unofficially required reading. So in the book, Webb describes a forced run, not a voluntary one, where a plea was forced to go out when the rocks were icy and snowy and dangerous in his combat boots, and to run the seawall. And so, having read that, people wanting to be as tough as that guy 10 years later would run the seawall.

And I have to admit, I did it myself a few times. And actually, the seawall itself is not very long. Most of the area there is just not really a beach; it’s more like concrete, but a small, not a huge, concrete structure. And again, I haven’t even been there in many years, so I don’t know what it’s like now.

But the mental challenge of the seawall. But plenty of people, including myself, integrate that seawall run into their exercise routine, taking a full perimeter of the campus. And the snow is getting thicker now as it’s coming down. It’s a lot easier to see, and it’s more diagonal.

There’s a bit of a breeze going on. So the storm is worsening as we go along here, heading back to my vehicle, but hopefully I will get away with this excursion, and my trip back to my house will be uneventful, and I won’t be coming out, at least not involving a vehicle, the rest of the weekend. There is a trail, as you regular listeners will know, within walking distance of my house, five minutes from my house, called Dean’s Trail, and it’s paved like this one.

And so I may decide to walk, that being safer, down to that trail and do another episode from there. It’s rare for this kind of thing to happen, so I really want to get it documented, and that’ll be a good thing for tomorrow. But no more driving in this for sure. Took a chance, and hopefully we’ll get away with it.

There’s another road back there. Not allowed. Hard surface. E-bikes, class 1, 2, and 3, are allowed on the soft surface.

Only class 1 is allowed on the soft trails. I don’t know, I’ve been talking about cycling, and I am very seriously considering getting an e-bike and starting to ride myself. One of the big considerations is what class to get. And I know that many soft trails will allow a class two bike.

The only difference for class two is that you can use a throttle without pedaling. But apparently, at Lake Fayetteville, only class one bikes are allowed on the soft trails. Get right on this. hard trail, the paved Razorback Greenway.

As much as I want a Class 2, I need a Class 1 to go on the soft trails. And that is an important development. I did not know that before. I saw that sign just now.

So now that will inform my decision. And honestly, I think it’s quite likely that I will go with a class one in order to have that flexibility. I was thinking I’m not likely to do some really tough trails with lots of hills, rocks, and all kinds of stuff like that, but the people who are really into it love that stuff. I mean, it just makes it more fun and exciting.

But I don’t think I want to take the greater risk of a spill while doing that type of riding. So I was thinking, you know, of getting a class two, which would help me if I get so tired that I can’t pedal, I can just use the throttle to get back to where I need to go. And I thought, you know, what I was, you know, I looked at, I looked up, of course, Mount Nebo, one of my favorite places to go.

And I thought that in those parks, and this may just be the city part of this park, probably is, that only allows class one, but I thought that in the state parks you could use a class 2 bike on soft trails at least some of them more sedate less challenging ones but at least here at Lake Fayetteville you need to have a class 1 bike now class 3 also does not have a throttle like the class 1, but it has more power and can go faster. It’s a top speed of 28 miles per hour. Assisted.

Obviously, if you turn off the motor, you can go faster, especially downhill. And the heaters are really going here at the Botanical Gardens house, when the greenhouse is outside. Feels good.