This is the Padua Podcast Network. But how do they find out? Those internet people who are out there putting the internet stuff on the internet. I mean, how do they know what they know?

Or is it even real? Maybe they’re lying to us. Maybe they, you know, are just putting information, fictional stuff out there just to get hits. Or for no reason at all.

Maybe there are insane people on the internet. Did you ever think about that? Welcome, Running Fever. It’s a show about fitness, diet, and medicine.

My name is Michael Davis, and I’m your host. It’s a beautiful day here at Lake Atalanta. 19 degrees. And I do see some ice on the water there.

Look at that. I haven’t seen that before. Ice on the water at Lake Atalanta. Well, this might be a dangerous thing to do, but it looks to me like there has at least been some attempt to clear the walkway here, the trail, so to speak.

So, you know, there’s actually a duck out there somewhere because I hear him. I, you know, I wanted to come out here, but didn’t know if it would be safe, but it looks like it’s gonna be pretty safe. At least right here, what I’ve seen so far, I have, there’s at least a small path to go through. There’s some ice on the trail, sometimes covering half of it or maybe more.

But, and this may be treacherous coming up here, but I have a handrail that I can use, and so we’re just going to be real careful here, and obviously, people have been out here because I can see all the footsteps, so the cold and ice have not been. It seems like a long way up ahead. I don’t know why it seems different today, but it feels like it’s a longer road than usual. Maybe because I’m just not able to go at the speed I usually do.

Chomping through this snow here. It is beautiful, though. There’s still snow on the hillside here. I do know that it’s a lot more work walking in the snow than on a paved, flat surface.

Just like, you know, it’s more work when you’re out hiking in the woods. That’s why they build flat surfaces in the sidewalks and roads, making it easier. I hope no one is running in this. You know I’d like to say they’re not, but I’ve got a clear space there for about 10 feet, but there’s probably some, you know, runners are different, you know? And this started out to be a running podcast.

And until I discovered I couldn’t really run. But runners are just a different breed. There’s something about them. And there’s a kind of dedication there.

Some may say it goes too far. I’m sure that is the case some of the time for some runners. I don’t consider myself a runner because I don’t really run. I’m really hoping that once we get over this bridge-type structure, there will be a clear trail. One thing I won’t have anything to hold on to.

Like I’m holding on to this rail right now. Fashion report, fashion department. I have pretty standard clothing on today, three layers on top, two layers on the bottom, a hat, and a hood up on the hoodie, but I’ve got the thick socks on today in hopes of keeping my feet warm. And gloves, of course.

Looks like there may have been some animals here. And I remember on a previous visit seeing squirrels skirmishing around. I’ve come quite a ways here. So there may be squirrels jumping around in the snow.

Squirrels are certainly frisky year-round, a defining characteristic. And honestly, the last time I was here, I think I actually named the episode Squirrel Energy. Because I saw some squirrels running around. Right around here, I think.

If there’s another… part with a rail on it and I did not start my thing kind of started automatically anyway it’s running there’s a sign that says it’s a curved road ahead screw on a bicycle that might be useful and the last time I went out was last Sunday which was right at the end of the storm that resulted in all this snow. But it’s been a week since I’ve been out.

I mean, there’s snow, but pretty quickly it freezes over, just like it is here, although there’s some snow and it just becomes this really jagged hard frozen landscape and uh for some reason looks like they did not do anything with the bridge but they put it off the trail beyond the bridge so fortune on them all oh yes that’s much better Yeah, there’s plenty of snow here with what looks like critters, probably rabbits or squirrels. Rodentia. And the moon is full.

Or so close to full that I can’t really tell that it’s not. And I don’t know if this is part of the fashion report or not, but my hands are very warm thanks to the new Pompongo, I don’t know if you can see it, Pompongo hand warmers that I have actually reviewed, did an unboxing on and I’m going to see how long they last today and how warm they are but they’re keeping my hands kind of warm, so far I don’t know if there’s another more creative way to use them to keep the rest of my body warm but I’m doing okay so far my uh outfit is doing well. I think having the base layers a good thing and something that fits tight and then a couple of loose layers is a good idea.

Okay, the one thing I didn’t mention in the fashion department was my shoes. I’m actually wearing my walking shoes today. I could have worn the boots, but I chose not to. There you go.

I have no reason for that. I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s that much of a difference. The boots might have helped me if my ankle had gotten turned or something.

In terms of traction on the slick surface, I don’t think it really makes much difference. Trees are bare. I don’t see any evergreen trees here. I don’t know if you call them deciduous, perennial, or something like that.

I’ve got to brush up on my tree and plant lingo. But all I can tell you is there are a lot of empty trees along here, and I can see the lake pretty clearly there. I kind of turned around today. For some reason, I forgot the turn that I was supposed to make.

It cost me at least 15 minutes getting here, but if I had only turned on the navigation, I would have gotten here. This place has been around long enough to be on my eight-year-old, non-updated navigation system. Lake Atalanta in the wintertime. There’s some ice in here.

It’s not all ice, certainly, but I’m never going to get cold enough long enough for that to happen in this area, but there’s definitely quite a bit of ice out there. We’ve had these single-digit temperatures down then, and yesterday did not get above freezing. Today’s supposed to. I think, Weather Department, it’s supposed to get up in the 40s today.

So I’m hoping that’ll melt in some of the more dangerous areas, making them less dangerous. So we figured out it’s actually 1.8 miles around Lake Atalanta. It’s not Terrible workout not a big one, but a really big one, but a you know It’s a workout plus you know I had to walk in the snow and that definitely is More strenuous than what I’m doing now So I think overall it’s gonna be a pretty good workout I think it’s safe to be out here in this weather, but probably many would say don’t go out.

It’s not one of those severe cold warnings that I get every now and then. But I think I’m going to do an episode on the dangers of the cold. Because you need to know that. You need to know, well, how cold is too cold?

I need to know that. I just kind of arbitrarily chose freezing at one time. Now I arbitrarily chose zero. Is zero too cold or not too cold?

I don’t know. At some point, you have a risk of frostbite. What’s the other one called? Hypothermia?

Trying to pick up my pace here. I’ve got a clean, snow-free, flat area right here. There’s a bench in case you want to sit and look at the ice. It’s probably six o’clock in the morning by now.

Lake Atalanta. That moon is very bright today. I’ve got a friend who, you know, every time I look at the moon, I think of him, and I think he thinks of me every time he looks at the moon, because we’re always, whenever we see each other, we’re always, well, what? Is the moon waxing or waning?

You know, a stupid question like that. You know, how do you know? I mean, maybe there’s a way to tell, but just by looking at it, I don’t know. You can definitely look it up on the internet if you want to, but how do they find out?

Those internet people that are out there putting the internet stuff on the internet, I mean, how do they know what they know? Or is it even real? Maybe they’re lying to us. Maybe they, you know, are just putting information, fictional stuff out there.

just to get hits. Who knows? Or for no reason at all. Maybe there are insane people on the internet.

Did you ever think about that? Well, that little stream is certainly not… I’m walking by now. It’s certainly not frozen because I can hear it.

You may be able to hear it too. And here is the sign that we never see because we never go the other way. Lake Atalanta, 1.8 miles, Lake Atalanta Loop. I just saw it.

Probably the last time I was here. I don’t know when I first saw it. I don’t know if cyclists are as crazy as runners are, but sometimes I think, you know, when I went out to Lake Fayetteville, there was a bike track there. Someone had been out before me in the snow on a bike.

At that point, it was only a couple of inches of snow, but it might have been three or four. We got a bunch more over the ensuing 24 hours. The closer you are to the light, the more likely it is to get burned. I don’t know why I said that; it just sounded really poetic at the time.

I’m thinking as I get closer to one light, and I’m right under it, and I get farther away, but the farther I get away from one light, the closer I get to the next. What is the philosophical meaning of that? I don’t know. But I do know that the more I walk, the closer I get to my nice, warm truck.

I’ve been using four-wheel drive a lot lately. Just trying to get around. I probably haven’t driven my car for over a week. I mean, I didn’t drive at all in the first couple of days of this mess.

Saturday morning I drove the truck to Lake Fayetteville and that’s that’s all I did until Tuesday. Tuesday, I went to work, and by then the main roads were pretty good, but as of this morning, I’ve still got ice on the roads in my neighborhood, and a lot of parking lots are still dangerous, so I’ve got to be careful. But I didn’t really experience anything bad other than turning around because I went the wrong way on the way here. And the parking lot is clear, of course, they’ve got piles of snow everywhere. This storm reminded me of Massachusetts. But the piles of snow that we see right now around the parking lots where people have cleared them, and I haven’t seen one being cleared, but it’s probably by one of those very small front loader-looking things.

And they just clear off the parking lot and dump everything in one pile. And the pile is what sticks around the longest. It just takes forever to melt that pile. And in the Northeast, Massachusetts, where I spent five years, those piles show up in October, and they stay around until March.

Those big, dirty piles of snow. Yeah, not so here, I’m sure, but till the temperature gets up high enough and the sun gets bright enough, because there’s not a lot of salting going on. I mean, you know, what’s a lot? You know, they’re not coming back to do a second round of salt, so the ice will melt.

Nobody’s coming through my neighborhood with salt. By that logic, there’s not a lot of salting going on, which means you’re just relying on it staying above freezing long enough to melt the stuff. And one of the problems is that in the parking lots, the snow melts, and the water freezes over. And unlike frozen snow, this water is now like glass.

And it’s what they call black ice. You can’t see it. It’s invisible. So you’ve got very slick, invisible ice in the parking lots and anywhere else where melting snow might pool.

So, it’s a dangerous time. There’s a lot of danger here. Well, that’s probably someone who’s going to feed the ducks, I’m thinking. I can’t think of any other reason why they’d be there, and there are some ducks there that probably expect it, so.

Yeah, somebody drove up and parked the car and got out of it, and I don’t know what they’re doing. I just kind of kept walking on. But I really don’t understand why there are ducks here when it’s so cold, when it’s wintertime. It doesn’t make sense.

But I am ignorant of many things. There’s, as I’ve heard said before, could fill a stadium with the things I don’t know. And that’s the truth. I don’t know much about ducks, migratory birds, or non-migratory birds.

I mean, it may be warm here today. They may be, you know, Arctic ducks that come down here. You know, on vacation. Who knows?

Just look like regular ducks to me, though. Feel good today. Yeah, feel good. Cold isn’t really bothering me.

Granted, it’s not single-digit cold, but it’s pretty close. 19 was the last I saw on my truck’s dash. 19 degrees, but you know, I mean, this is different, you know. It’s different to be out here and see this scenery as it is here today, this morning.

And only the duck feeder is out today, not anybody else. Last time I was here wasn’t quite this early, but it was pretty early. I saw a couple of people. Several people, in fact.

But I don’t think there was snow and ice. Now see, here’s a bridge. And they have cleared this bridge. Why didn’t they clear the other one?

Who knows? The shadow knows. Look that up. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.

Well, I don’t know how long it’s been, but I would say it’s probably been at least an hour. And my Pompongo hand warmers are still going. I don’t know how long they will last on one charge, but, you know, for my purposes today, they went long enough. I suppose you could get, you know, a bunch of these and put them all over your, strap them all over, you know, under your hat, in all your pockets, in your hands.

It’d just be a body warmer. That’s what they need, a body warmer. Well, as soon as I find my truck, I’m out of here. I want to thank everybody for listening and watching. If you watched, this has been another adventure at beautiful Lake Atalanta in Rogers, Arkansas, and so remember, especially in the cold weather, if you’ve got the fever keep it burning, and if you don’t catch the fever, I will see you next time on Running: A FEVER.